Sold by 
 
 Charles B. Davis, 
 
 Washington Street 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS, la. 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 HENRY LORD BROUGHAM, 
 
 UPON QUESTIONS RELATING TO 
 
 PUBLIC RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND INTERESTS 
 
 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTIONS 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 LEA AND U L A N C H A R D . 
 
 1841.
 
 T. K. 4 P. O. COLLINS, Printert. 
 No. 1 Lodge Alley.
 
 8 7 
 
 IS 4 
 V. I 
 
 TO THE MOST NOBLE 
 
 RICHARD MARQUESS WELLESLEY, 
 
 SUCCESSIVELY 
 THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF INDIA, 
 
 BRITISH AMBASSADOR IN SPAIN, 
 SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 
 
 AND 
 LORD-LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND, 
 
 THESE VOLUMES ARE INSCRIBED 
 
 AS A TRIBUTE 
 MOST JUSTLY DUE TO SO ILLUSTRIOUS A STATESMAN; 
 
 AND IN COMMEMORATION 
 
 OF THE RARE FELICITY OF ENGLAND, 
 
 SO RICH IN GENIUS AND CAPACITY FOR AFFAIRS, 
 
 THAT SHE CAN SPARE FROM HER SERVICE 
 
 SUCH MEN AS HIM.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE plan of the present publication is sufficiently 
 obvious. The Introductions to the different Speeches 
 are intended to elucidate the history of the measures 
 discussed, and of the periods to which they relate. 
 But the most satisfactory, indeed the only accurate, 
 manner of giving the history of the times, must always 
 be to give an account of the persons who bore the 
 chief part in their transactions. This is more or less 
 true of all annals; but it is peculiarly so of political 
 annals. The course of state affairs, their posture at 
 any given period, and the nature of the different mea- 
 sures propounded from time to time, can only be well 
 understood, by giving an accurate representation of the 
 characters of those who figured most remarkably upon 
 the scene. 
 
 It is not, however, by those pieces of composition 
 which abound in many histories, under the name of 
 " characters," that anything like this knowledge can be 
 conveyed. Without any regard to fine writing, mea- 
 sured and balanced periods, or neat and pointed anti- 
 theses, the personages must be described such as they 
 
 really w r ere, by a just mixture of general remarks, and 
 
 i*
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 reference to particular passages in their lives. In no 
 other way can they be made known ; in no other way. 
 indeed, can the very first requisite of such sketches he 
 attained the exhibition of the peculiarities that marked 
 the originals the preservation of the individuality of 
 each. 
 
 The works of some of our most celebrated writers, 
 both ancient and modern, deserve to be studied, with 
 the view of avoiding as much as it is possible their 
 manner of performing this most important of the his- 
 torian's duties. The main object in those compositions 
 plainly is, to turn sentences, and not to paint characters. 
 The same plan is pursued in all cases. Is an able ruler, 
 and one of virtuous life, to be described ? The author 
 considers what qualities are wanting to constitute great 
 capacity for affairs. So he hangs together the epithets 
 of wise, and prudent, and vigorous, and provident; and 
 never fails to bestow on the individual great caution in 
 forming his plans, and much promptitude in executing 
 them. But discrimination must be shown. So the 
 author reflects how the excess of a virtue may become 
 a vice; and therefore the hero of the tale has prudence 
 without timidity boldness without rashness and a 
 great many things without a great many other things. 
 Accordingly, we find the produce of a workmanship as 
 useless as it is easy, to be a set of characters all made 
 nearly in the same mould, without distinction of colour, 
 or feature, or stature ; displaying the mere abstractions 
 of human nature, and applying, almost equally, one set
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 to any able or virtuous person, and the other to any 
 person of inferior capacity and of wicked life. The 
 speeches put into the mouths of great men by the an- 
 cient historians are from the same kind of workshop 
 Cato is made to deliver himself exactly like Caesar; 
 that is, they both speak as Sallust wrote. 
 
 In the attempts which these volumes contain, to 
 represent individuals, for the purpose of recording the 
 history of their times, all ambition of fine writing has 
 been laid aside, and nothing, but the facts of each case, 
 and the impressions actually left upon the writer's me- 
 mory, has ever been regarded in the least degree. With 
 one only exception, the sketches are the result of per- 
 sonal observation, and in general of intimate acquaint- 
 ance; so that each individual maybe said to have sitten 
 for his picture. No sacrifice has ever been made to 
 attain the unsubstantial and unavailing praise of felici- 
 tous composition. Nor has any the least door been left 
 open to feelings of a worse kind, whether amicable or 
 hostile. The relations of friendship and enmity, whe- 
 ther political or personal, have been wholly disregarded, 
 and one only object kept steadily in view the likeness 
 of the picture, whether critical or moral.* 
 
 * In describing the persons who mainly contributed to abolish the slave 
 trade, the reader will perceive that, the much-honoured name of Z. Macau lay 
 is omitted. He had not, in fact, ceased to live when that Introduction was 
 printed, and hopes were still entertained of his remaining some time longer 
 amongst us. This great omission, therefore, cannot now be supplied. But 
 it may still be recorded, that after Wilberforce and Clarkson, there is no 
 one whose services in the cause as well of Emancipation as of Abolition,
 
 Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 It is conceived that some good service may be ren- 
 dered to the cause of human improvement, which the 
 author has ever had so much at heart, by the present 
 publication, because its tendency is to fix the public 
 attention upon some of the subjects most important to 
 the interests of mankind. The repression, or at least 
 the subjugation, of party feelings, must be always of 
 material benefit to the community, and tend to remove 
 a very serious obstruction from the great course in 
 which legislation is advancing. Party connection is 
 indeed beneficial as long as it only bands together those 
 who, having formed their opinions for themselves, are 
 desirous of giving them full effect. But so much of 
 abuse has generally attended such leagues, that reflect- 
 ing men are now induced to reject them altogether. 
 Their greatest evil certainly is the one most difficult to 
 be shunned their tendency to deliver over the many 
 to the guidance of the few, in matters where no domi- 
 nion ever should be exercised to make the opinions 
 
 have been more valuable. It is indeed saying all, to say, as with strict 
 accuracy we may, that of Emancipation he was the Clarkson. His practical 
 acquaintance, too, with the whole question, from actual residence both in 
 Africa and the West Indies, was of material use through every part of the 
 great controversy which he almost lived to see happily closed. But his 
 laborious habits, his singularly calm judgment, his great acuteness, the abso- 
 lute self-denial which he ever showed in all that related to it, and the self- 
 devotion with which he sacrificed his life to its promotion, can only be con- 
 ceived by his fellow-labourers who witnessed these rare merits; and still 
 less is it possible to represent adequately the entire want of all care about 
 the glory of his good works, which made him indeed prefer doing his duty 
 in silence, in obscurity, and in all but neglect.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 adopted by leading men pass current, without any re- 
 flection, among their followers to enfeeble and corrupt 
 the public mind, by discouraging men from thinking 
 for themselves and to lead multitudes into courses 
 which they have no kind of interest in pursuing, in 
 order that some designing individuals may gain by their 
 folly or their crimes. As society advances, such delu- 
 sions will become more and more difficult to practise ; 
 and it may safely be affirmed, that hundreds now-a-days 
 discharge the sacred duty to themselves and their coun- 
 try, of forming their own opinions upon reflection, for 
 one that had disenthralled himself thirty years ago.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. PAOB 
 Introduction, ..... .13 
 
 Case of J. Hunt and J. L. Hunt, ..... 18 
 
 Case of John Drakard, ...... 38 
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 Introduction, ....... 57 
 
 Speech in the Queen's Case, ..... 62 
 
 Account of Mr. Denman's Speech, .... 136 
 
 Argument for the Queen's Coronation, . . . .145 
 
 CASE OF THE REV. RICHARD BLACOW. 
 
 Introduction, ....... 163 
 
 Speech, ........ 167 
 
 LIBELS ON THE DURHAM CLERGY. 
 
 Introduction, ....... 171 
 
 Argument in the Case of J. A. Williams, .... 174 
 
 Speech at Durham Assizes, ..... 183 
 
 DISSERTATION ON THE LAW OF LIBEL, ..... 205 
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES. 
 
 Introduction, ....... 215 
 
 Speech on Commerce and Manufactures, and the Orders in Council, 224 
 
 Introduction, ....... 251 
 
 Speech at Liverpool Ejection, ..... 256 
 
 AGRICULTURAL AND MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 
 
 Introduction, ....... 261 
 
 Speech on State of Agriculture, ..... 2G5 
 
 Speech on Manufacturing Distress, . . . .291
 
 Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 ARMY ESTIMATES. P AOE 
 
 Introduction, ....... 323 
 
 Speech, ........ 324 
 
 HOLY ALLIANCE. 
 
 Introduction, ....... 335 
 
 Speech, ........ 344 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 Introduction, ....... 359 
 
 Slave Trade, 1810, ...... 365 
 
 Introduction, ....... 377 
 
 Missionary Smith, ....... 379 
 
 Negro Slavery, 1830, ...... 424 
 
 Slave Trade, 1838, ...... 439 
 
 Negro Apprenticeship, ...... 449 
 
 Eastern Slave Trade, ...... 473 
 
 LAW REFORM. 
 
 Introduction, ....... 505 
 
 Present State of the Law, . . . . .516 
 
 Local Courts, ....... 608
 
 SPEECHES 
 IN TRIALS FOR LIBELS 
 
 CONNECTED WITH 
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 STATE OF OPINION. MR. WILLIAM COBBETT. 
 
 AN opinion had for some j'cars begun to prevail among political reasoners, and 
 had found its way also into the army, that the punishment of flogging, to which 
 our troops alone of all the European soldiery are snhject, was cruel in its nature, 
 hurtful to the military character in its effects, and ill calculated to attain the reat 
 ends of all penal infliction the reformation of the offender, and the prevention of 
 other offences by the force of example. Several tracts had been published, chiefly 
 by military officers, in which the subject was discussed; and among these the pam- 
 phlets of Generals Money, Stewart and Sir Robert \Vilson were the most dis- 
 tinguished, both for their own merits, and the rank and services of their authors, 
 who had never borne any part in political controversy, or, in as far as they had 
 been led by accidental circumstances to declare their opinions, had been found the 
 supporters of the old established order of things in all its branches. In 1810 Mr. 
 Cobbett, who, having himself served in North America, had witnessed the effects 
 of this species of punishment, and had naturally a strong feeling for the character 
 of the profession, published some strictures on the subject in his " Political Regis- 
 ter." That work enjoyed in those days a great circulation and influence. It was 
 always one of extraordinary ability, and distinguished by a vigorous and generally 
 pure Knglish style; but it was disfigured by coarseness, and rendered a very unsafe 
 guide by the author's violent prejudices his intolerance of all opinions but his 
 own, and indeed his contempt of all persons but himself his habitual want of 
 fairness towards his adversaries bis constant disregard of facts in his statements 
 and the unblushing changes which he made in his opinions upon things, from 
 extreme to extreme, and in his comments upon men, from the extravagance of 
 praise to the excess of vituperation. These great defects, above all, the want of 
 any fixed system of settled principle, almost entirely destroyed his influence as a 
 periodical writer, and extremely reduced the circulation of his paper, long before 
 his death and its discontinuance, which were contemporaneous; he having for the 
 unexampled period of five and thirty years carried on this weekly publication 
 unassisted by any one, although lie was interrupted by his removal to America, 
 whence he transmitted it regularly for several years, and was likewise both ham- 
 pered by difficulties arising out of farming speculations, and occupied occasionally 
 by several other lilt r.uy works. Hut in 1H10 his \vright with the public, had 
 Buffered little if any diminution, and a vi ry large number of his Re;ji>ter was 
 VOL. I. ii
 
 14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 printed. The strictures on flogging were not distinguished by any of Mr. Cobbett's 
 higher qualities of writing. They were a mere effusion of virulence upon the 
 occasion of a punishment having taken place in the local militia of Ely. They 
 were addressed not to the understanding nor even to the feelings of the reader; but 
 rather to those of the soldiery who suffered the infliction, and of the bystanders 
 who witnessed it; their tone and terms being, " You well deserve to be treated like 
 brutes, if by submitting to it you show yourselves to be brutes." 
 
 Such was the spirit in which the few remarks in question were conceived; and 
 indeed this was their substance, although these were not the words employed. 
 According to the notions in those days entertained of the law of libel, it could 
 excite no surprise that the government prosecuted the author and publisher; Sir 
 Vicary Gibbs, then Attorney-general, having frequently filed informations for 
 remarks as calm and temperate as these w T ere coarse and violent. Mr. Cobbett 
 was accordingly brought to trial in the month of June, 1810. He defended him- 
 self; and, appearing then for the first time before a public audience, exhibited a 
 new but by no means a rare example of the difference between writing and speaking; 
 for nothing could be more dull and unimpressive than his speech, nothing less 
 clear and distinct than its reasoning, more feeble than its style, or more embar- 
 rassed and inefficient than its delivery. The writer and the speaker could hardly 
 be recognised as the same individual such is the effect of embarrassment, or such 
 the influence of manner. But he afterwards defended himself in 1820 against 
 actions brought by private parties whom he had slandered; and then, having by 
 practice during the interval, acquired considerable ease of speaking, his appear- 
 ance was more than respectable it was very effective. His style was also abun- 
 dantly characteristic and racy; it had great originality it suited the man it pos- 
 sessed nearly all the merits of his written productions, and it was set off by a kind 
 of easy, good-humored, comic delivery, with no little archness both of look and 
 phrase, that made it clear he was a speaker calculated to take with a popular 
 assembly out of doors, and by no means certain that he would not succeed even in 
 the House of Commons; where when he afterwards came, he certainly did not fail, 
 and would have had very considerable success had he entered it at an earlier age. 
 In 1810 he was convicted, (as in 1820, he had verdicts with heavy damages against 
 him,) and his sentence was a fine of 1000/. and two years imprisonment in New- 
 gate; a punishment which may well make us doubt, if we now, seeing the pro- 
 ductions of the periodical press, live in the same country and under the same 
 system of laws. 
 
 In the month of August immediately following, the subject was taken up by a 
 writer of great powers, the late Mr. John Scott, who afterwards conducted a weekly 
 paper, published in London, called the "Champion." He was honorably distin- 
 guished by several literary works, and unfortunately fell in a duel, occasioned by 
 some observations upon a gentleman whose conduct had come in question. In 1810 
 he was a contributor to the "Stamford News," a Lincolnshire paper, distinguished 
 for its constant adherence to the cause of civil and religious liberty. Its publisher, 
 Mr. John Drakard, was a person of great respectability, and showed at once his 
 high sense of honor, and his devotion to his principles, by steadily refusing to 
 give up the author's name, when menaced with a prosecution. These remarks of 
 Mr. Scott were soon afterwards copied into the " Examiner," a London paper, then 
 conducted by Messrs. J. and J. L. Hunt; and the Attorney-general filed informa- 
 tions both against them, for the publication in London, and against Mr. Drakard, 
 for the original publication in the country a species of vindictive proceeding not 
 without its effect, in bringing all state prosecutions for libel soon afterwards into 
 a degree of discredit which lias led to their disuse. 
 
 The remarks were as follows: 
 
 " ONE THOUSAND LASHES ! ! " 
 
 "The aggressors were not dealt with as Buonaparte would have treated his refractory 
 troops." SPEECH OF THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL. 
 
 " Corporal Curtis was sentenced to receive ONE THOUSAND LASHES, but, after receiving 
 Two Hundred, was, on his own petition, permitted to volunteer into a regiment on
 
 INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 foreign service. William Clifford, a private in the Till royal veteran battalion, waa 
 lately sentenced to receive ONE THOUSAND LASHES, for repeatedly striking and kicking 
 his superior officer. He underwent part of his sentence, by receiving seven hundred 
 and fifty lashes, at Canterbury, in presence of the whole garrison. A garrison court- 
 martial has been held on board the Metcalf transport, at Spithead, on some men of 
 the fourth regiment of foot, for disrespectful behaviour to their ofliccrs. Two THOU- 
 SAND six HUNDRED LASHES were to be inflicted among them. Robert Chillinan, a private 
 in the Bearsted and Mulling regiment of local militia, who was lately tried by a 
 court-martial for disobedience of orders, and mutinous and improper behaviour, while 
 the regiment was embodied, has been found guilty of all the charges and sentenced 
 to receive EIGHT HUNDRED LASHES, which are to be inflicted on him at Chatham, to 
 which garrison he is to be marched for that purpose." London Newspapers. 
 " The Attorney-general said what was very true these aggressors have certainly not 
 been dealt with as Buonaparte would have treated his refractory troops; nor, indeed, 
 as refractory troops would be treated in any civilised country whatever, save and 
 except only this country. Here alone, in this land of liberty, in this age of refinement, 
 by a people who, with their usual consistency, have been in the habit of reproaching 
 their neighbors with the cruelty of their punishment is still inflicted a species of tor- 
 ture, at least as exquisite as any that was ever devised by the infernal ingenuity of the 
 Inquisition. No, as the Attorney-general justly says, Buonaparte docs not treat his refrac- 
 tory troops in this manner; there is not a man in his ranks whose back is seamed with 
 the lacerating cut-o'-nine-tails; his soldiers have never yet been brought up to view one 
 of their comrades stripped naked; his limbs tied with ropes to a triangular machine; his 
 back torn to the bone by the merciless cutting whipcord, applied by persons who relieve 
 each other at short intervals, that they may bring the full unexhausted strength of a man 
 to the work of scourging. Buonaparte's soldiers have never yet with tingling cars 
 listened to the piercing screams of a human creature so tortured; they have never seen 
 the blood oozing from his rent flesh; they have never beheld a surgeon, with dubious look, 
 pressing the agonised victim's pulse, and calmly calculating, to an odd blow, how far suf- 
 fering may be extended, until in its extremity it encroach upon life. In short, Buona- 
 parte's soldiers cannot form any notion of that most heart-rending of all exhibitions on 
 this .side hell an English military flogging, 
 
 "Let it not be supposed that we intend these remarks to excite a vague and indiscrimi- 
 nating sentiment against punishment by military law; no, when it is considered that disci- 
 pline forms the soul of an army, without which it would at once degenerate into a. mob; 
 when the description of persons which compose the body of what is called an army, and 
 the situations in which it is frequently placed, arc also taken into account, it will, we are 
 afraid, appear but too evident, that the military code must still be kept distinct from the 
 civil, and distinguished by greater promptitude and severity. Buonaparte is no favorite 
 of ours, Clod wot; but if we come to balance accounts with him on this particular head, 
 let us see how matters will stand. He recruits his ranks by force so do we. \\'cjlog 
 those whom we have forced fie does not. It may be said he punishes them in some man- 
 ner; that is very true. He imprisons his refractory troops, occasionally in chains, and in 
 aggravated cases he puts them to death. But any of these severities is preferable to tying 
 a human creature up like a dog, and cutting his flesh to pieces with whipcord. Who 
 would not go to prison for two years, or indeed for almost any term, rather than bear the 
 exquisite, the almost insupport iblc torment occasioned by the infliction of seven hundred 
 or a thousand lashes? De.ith is mercy compared with such sufferings. Besides, what is 
 a man go'id for after he has the cat-o'-nine-tails across his baek? Can he ever again 
 hold up his head among his fellows? One of the poor wretches executed at Lincoln last 
 Friday, is stated to have been severely punished in some regiment. The probability is, 
 that to this odious, ignominious flogging, may be traced his sad end; and it cannot be 
 doubted that he found the gallows less cruel than the halberts. Surely then, the Attorney- 
 general ought not to stroke his chin with such complacency, when he refers to the manner 
 in which Buonaparte treats his soldiers. We despise and detest those who would tell us 
 that there is as much liberty now enjoyed in 1'Yaneo as there is left in this country. Wo 
 give all credit to the wishes of some of our great men; yet while anything remains to us in 
 the shape of free discussion, it is impossible that we should sink into the abject slavery 
 in which the French people are plunged. But although we do not envy the general con- 
 dition of Buonaparte's subjects, we really (and we speak the honest conviction of our 
 hearts) sec nothing peculiarly pitiable in the lot of his soldiers, when compared with th.it 
 of our own. Were we called upon to make our election between the services, the whip- 
 cord would at once decide us. No advantage! whatever can compensate lor, or render 
 tolerable to a mind but one degree removed from brutality, u liability to be lashed like a
 
 16 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 beast. It is idle to talk about rendering the situation of a British soldier pleasant to him- 
 self, or desirable, far less honorable, in the estimation of others, while the whip is held 
 over his head, and over his head alone; for in no other country in Europe (with the excep- 
 tion, perhaps of Russia, which is yet in a state of barbarity) is the military character so 
 degraded. We once heard of an army of slaves, who had bravely withstood the swords 
 of their masters being defeated and dispersed by the bare shaking of the instrument of 
 flagellation in their faces. This brought so forcibly to their minds their former state of 
 servitude and disgrace, that every honorable impulse at once forsook their bosoms, and 
 they betook themselves to flight' and to howling. We entertain no anxiety about the 
 character of our countrymen in Portugal, when we contemplate their meeting the bayonets 
 of Massena's troops; but we must own that we should tremble for the result, were the 
 French general to despatch against them a few hundred drummers, each brandishing a 
 cat-ai 1 -nine-tails" 
 
 The Middlesex jury in Westminster, where the first of these two trials took 
 place, after retiring for two hours, acquitted the defendants, Messrs. Hunt, although 
 Lord Ellenborough had given a very powerful charge to them, in favor of the pro- 
 secution, and declared his opinion without any doubt to be, that the publication 
 was made with the intentions imputed to it in the Information, of exciting disaffec- 
 tion in the army, and deterring persons from entering it. 
 
 Sir Robert Wilson, who had been subprenaed as a witness by the defendants, 
 but was not examined, sat on the bench by Lord Ellenborough during the whole 
 proceedings, in the course of which allusion was made to his Tract, not only by 
 the counsel on both sides, but by the learned judge, who, entertaining no doubt at 
 all of the perfect purity of his intentions, expressed, but respectfully expressed, a 
 wish that lie had used more guarded language; and indeed, his lordship thought 
 that all officers, instead of publishing on so delicate a subject, ought to have pri- 
 vately given their opinions to the government. 
 
 At Lincoln, where Mr. Brougham went on a special retainer, three weeks after- 
 wards, to defend Mr. Drakard, the difference between a provincial jury and one in 
 the metropolis was seen; for there a conviction took place, and the worthy and 
 independent publisher was afterwards, by the Court of King's Bench, where he 
 was brought up for judgment, sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment. 
 
 These trials were not without their influence upon the great question to which 
 they related. The speeches delivered, the discussion of the merits of the case in 
 the public papers, the conversation to which, in the course of the next session, 
 they gave rise in Parliament,,bronght, for the first time, this subject before the 
 country, and also turned the attention of military men to it much more than it had 
 heretofore been, among a class always prone to abide by existing usages, and hardly 
 capable, indeed, of conceiving tilings to be other than as they have always found 
 them. A subject which has since been discussed with the most unrestricted free- 
 dom of comment in al! cin-les in every kind of publication in meetings of the 
 people, as well as in the, chambers of Parliament before the troops themselves, 
 as well as where only ci:i/.ens were congregated and which has finally been made 
 matter of investigation by a military board can at this time of day hardly be 
 conceived to have excited, less than thirty years ago, so much apprehension, that 
 the broaching it at all, even in very measured terms, drew down censure from the 
 bench upon general officers who had been so adventurous as to handle it; and the 
 approaches to its consideration were carefully fenced by all the terrors with which 
 the law of libel, v.iguc and ill-defined, arms the executive government in this 
 country. There seemed to prevail a general anxiety and alarm, lest by the discus- 
 sion, feelings of a dangerous kind should be excited in the soldiery. A mysterious 
 awe hung over men's minds, and forbade them to break in upon the question. A 
 fence was drawn around the ground, tti/nxi'i/ as it were by military engines, and 
 other symbols of mere force. A spellbound the public mind, like that invisible 
 power which, on board of ship, keeps all men's limbs, with their minds, under the 
 control of a single voice. The dissolving of this spell, and the dissipation for 
 ever of all these apprehensions, must be traced to the trials of Drakard and the 
 Hunts. The light is now let in upon this as upon all other questions, whether of 
 civil, or criminal, or military polity,- and the reign of the lash is no more privi-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 leged from the control of public opinion, and the wholesome irritation of free dis- 
 cussion, than that of the hulks or the gibbet. Men may still form various opinions 
 upon the subject. Enlightened statesmen and experienced captains may differ 
 widely in the conclusions to which their observation and their reasoning have led 
 them. It is still, perhaps, far from being demonstrated, that a punishment whicli 
 such high authorities as the Duke of Wellington regard as indispensable to a cer- 
 tain extent, can bo all at once safely abandoned. But whatever may be the result 
 of the inquiry, it is no'.v an entirely open question. Its being thus thrown open, 
 and placed on the same footing with every other chapter of our penal code, will 
 assuredly lead to its being rightly settled in the end; and the trials to which we 
 have adverted, mainly contributed to this salutary result.
 
 CASE 
 
 JOHN HUNT AND JOHN LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 JANUARY 22, 1811. 
 
 SPEECH, 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LoRDSHIP GENTLEMEN OF THE JuRYI In 
 
 rising to support the cause of these defendants, I feel abundantly 
 sensible of the difficulties under which they labor. It is not that they 
 have to contend, with such unequal force on my part, against the 
 talents and learning of the Attorney-general, and the high influence 
 of his office; nor is it merely that they stand in the situation of 
 defendants prosecuted by the crown, for in ordinary cases they would 
 have the common presumption of innocence to work in their favor; 
 but the hardship of their case originates in the nature of the charge 
 on which they are brought before you a charge of libel, at a time 
 when the licentiousness of the press has reached to a height which it 
 certainly never attained in any other country, nor even in this at any 
 other time. That licentiousness, indeed, has of late years appeared 
 to despise all the bounds which had once been prescribed to the 
 attacks on private character, insomuch that there is not only no per- 
 sonage so important or exalted for of that I do not complain but, 
 no person so humble, harmless, and retired, as to escape the defama- 
 tion which is daily and hourly poured forth by a venal tribe, to gratify 
 the idle curiosity, or the less excusable malignity, of the public. To 
 mark out for the indulgence of that propensity, individuals retiring 
 into the privacy of domestic life to hunt them down for the gratifi- 
 cation of their enemies, and drag them forth as a laughing-stock to 
 the vulgar, has become in our days, with some men, the road even to 
 popularity; but with multitudes, the means of earning a base sub- 
 sistence. Gentlemen, the nature and the causes of this evil it is 
 unnecessary for me to point out. Indeed, I am far from saying that 
 there is nothing to extenuate it; I am ready even to admit that this 
 abuse of the press in defaming private characters, does derive no 
 small apology from the insatiable love of publicity which preys upon
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. 19 
 
 a great part of the community; leading them scarcely to value exist- 
 ence itself, if it is not passed in the eyes of the world, and to care but 
 little what they do, so they be only stared at, or talked of. It fur- 
 nishes somewhat of excuse, too, that the public itself is insatiable in 
 its thirst for slander; swallows it with a foul, indiscriminate appetite; 
 and, liberal at least in its patronage of this species of merit, largely 
 rewards those whom it sends forth to pander for those depraved 
 tastes. But, in whatever way arising, or however palliated, the fact 
 of the abuse of the press is certain, and the consequences are fatal to 
 the press itself; for the licentiousness of which I complain has been 
 the means of alienating the affections of those who had ever stood 
 forward as its fastest friends and its firmest defenders. It has led 
 them to doubt the uses of that which they have seen so perverted 
 and abused. It has made them, instead of blessing "the useful 
 light" of that great source of improvement, see in it only an instru- 
 ment of real mischief, or doubtful good; and when they find, that 
 instead of being kept pure, for the instruction of the world; instead 
 of being confined to questioning the conduct of men in high situa- 
 tions, canvassing public measures, and discussing great general ques- 
 tions of policy; when they find that, instead of such, its legitimate 
 objects, this inestimable blessing has been made subservient to the 
 purposes of secret malice, perverted to the torture of private feelings, 
 and the ruin of individual reputation those men have at last come 
 to view it, if not with hostility, at least with doubtful friendship, and 
 relaxed zeal for its privileges. It is no small aggravation of this pre- 
 judice, that the defendants come into court to answer this charge, 
 after other libels of a more general description have been published 
 and prosecuted; after those, to which the Attorney-general has so 
 forcibly alluded in the opening of this case, have so lately been 
 brought before the court, and their authors and circulators convicted. 
 At first sight, and upon merely stating the subject of this publication, 
 it is but natural for you to imagine that there is some similarity 
 between those other cases and the present; and that a publication on 
 the general subject of military punishment (which is the only point 
 of resemblance), belongs to the same class of libels with those so 
 anxiously alluded to by my learned friend with those particularly 
 for which Mr. Cobbett, and probably some others, are suffering the 
 sentence of the law. 
 
 The Attorney-general did not put these circumstances in the back- 
 ground; he was anxious to draw a parallel between this case and Mr. 
 Cobbelt's. It will be unnecessary for me to follow this comparison; 
 all I say in the outset is, that I confidently predict, I shall not proceed 
 far before I shall have convinced you, gentlemen, that light is not 
 more different from darkness than the publication set forth in this 
 record is different from all and each of the former publications brought 
 before the court by the Attorney-general for conviction, and now again 
 brought forward for argument. The consequence of all these prepos- 
 sessions, in whatever way arising, is, I will not say fatal, but extremely 
 hurtful to these defendants. It places them in a torrent of prejudice.
 
 20 MILITARY FLOGGING. 
 
 in which they would in vain have attempted, and I should not have 
 counselled them to stand, had they not rested on the firm footing of 
 the merits of their individual case, and the confidence that his lord- 
 ship and you will cheerfully stretch forth an helping arm in the only 
 way in which you can help them; in the only way in which they 
 ask your aid that you will do strict justice between the Crown and 
 them, by entering into an examination of their single individual case. 
 Gentlemen, you have to try whether the particular publication, set 
 forth in this record, has manifestly, upon the bare appearance of it, 
 been composed and published with the evil intention, and with the 
 bad purpose and hurtful tendency alleged in the information. If their 
 intention has apparently been good, or, whether laudable or not, if it 
 has been innocent and not blameworthy, then, whatever you may 
 think of the opinions contained in the work even though you may 
 think them utterly false and unfounded in whatever light you may 
 view it critically as a piece of composition though you may consider 
 the language as much too weak or as far too strong for the occasion 
 
 O 
 
 still if you are convinced there is nothing blameable in the intention 
 which appears to have actuated the author and publisher, (for I will 
 take the question on the footing that the author himself is before you, 
 though the evidence, on the face it, bears me out in distinctly asserting 
 that these defendants did not write this article, but copied it from 
 another work which they particularly specify, yet, in order to argue 
 the question more freely, I will suppose it is the case of the original 
 composer, which you are now to try, and I am sure my learned friend 
 cannot desire me to meet him on higher or fairer ground,) I say then, 
 that if you are not convinced if, upon reading the composition at- 
 tentively, you are not, every one of you, fully and thoroughly con- 
 vinced that the author had a blameable, a most guilty intention in 
 writing it, and that he wrote it for a wicked purpose, you must acquit 
 those defendants who republished it. This, gentlemen, is the particu- 
 lar question you have to try; but I will not disguise from you, that 
 you are now trying a more general and important question than this. 
 You are now to determine, whether an Englishman still enjoys the 
 privilege, of freely discussing public measures whether an English- 
 man still possesses the privilege of impeaching (for if he has a right 
 to discuss, he has a right to espouse whichever side his sentiments 
 lead him to adopt, and may speak or write against, as well as for), 
 whether he has still a right to impeach, not one individual character, 
 not one or two public men, not a single error in policy, not any par- 
 ticular abuse of an established system I do not deny that he has the 
 right to do all this, and more than this, but it is not necessary for me 
 now to maintain it but the question for you to try is, whether an 
 Englishman shall any longer have the power of making comments 
 on a system of policy, of discussing a general, I had almost said an 
 abstract, political proposition, of communicating to his countrymen 
 his opinion upon the merits, not of a particular measure, or even a 
 line of conduct pursued by this or that administration, (though no 
 man ever dreamt of denying him this also,) but of a general system
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. 21 
 
 of policy, which it has pleased the government to adopt at all times: 
 Whether a person, devoted to the interests of his country, warm in 
 his attachment to its cause, vehemently impelled by a love of its hap- 
 piness and glory, has a right to endeavor, by his own individual 
 exertions, to make that perfect which he so greatly admires, by point- 
 ing out tfiose little defects in its constitution which are the only spots 
 whereupon his partial eyes can rest for blame: Whether an English- 
 man, anxious for the honor and renown of the army, and deeply 
 feeling how much the safety of his country depends upon the perfec- 
 tion of its military system, has a right to endeavor to promote the 
 good of the service, by showing wherein the present system is detri- 
 mental to it, by marking out for correction those imperfections which 
 bear, indeed, no proportion to the general excellence of the establish- 
 ment, those ilaws which he is convinced alone prevent it from attain- 
 ing absolute perfection? Whether a person, anxious for the welfare 
 of the individual soldier; intimately persuaded that on the feelings 
 and the honor of the soldier depend the honor and glory of our arms; 
 sensible that upon those feelings and that honor hinges the safety of 
 the country at all times, but never so closely as at present whether, 
 imbued with such sentiments, and urged by these motives, a man has 
 not a right to make his opinions as public as is necessary to give them 
 effect? Whether he may not innocently, nay, laudably, seek to make 
 converts to his own views, by giving them publicity, and endeavor 
 to realise his wishes for the good of the state, and the honor of its 
 arms, by proving, in the face of his fellow-citizens, the truth of the 
 doctrines to which he is himself conscientiously attached? These, 
 gentlemen, are the questions put to you by this record; and your 
 verdict, when it shall be entered upon it, will decide such questions 
 as these. 
 
 Gentlemen, it is, I am persuaded, known to all of you, that for many 
 years past, the anxious attention of the government of this country 
 has been directed (at times, indeed, to the exclusion of all other con- 
 siderations) towards the improvement of our military establishment. 
 It would be endless, and it would be unnecessary for me to enter into 
 the various projects for its improvement, which from time to time 
 have been entertained by our rulers, and adopted or rejected by the 
 legislature: it is enough that I should state, in one short sentence, that 
 all those plans have had the same common objects to protect and 
 benefit the private soldier, to encourage the recruiting of the army, 
 and to improve the character of those who compose it, by bettering 
 the condition of the soldier himself. In the prosecution of these 
 grand leading designs, various plans have been suggested by different 
 statesmen of great name; plans which I need not particularise, but to 
 some of which, in so far as they relate to the present information, it 
 is necessary that I should direct your attention. One of the chief 
 means suggested for improving the condition of the soldier, is shorten- 
 ing the duration of his service; and upon that important subject it is 
 unnecessary for me to use words of my own, when I have, in a pub- 
 lication which is before the world, and I dare say has been before you,
 
 22 MILITARY FLOGGING. 
 
 (at least yon cannot be unacquainted with the name and the fame of 
 the author,) that which better expresses my sentiments than any lan- 
 guage I could use myself. The arguments are there so forcibly stated, 
 and the subject is altogether placed in so luminous a point of view, 
 that it is better for me to give them in the words of the respectable 
 writer, the gallant officer I have alluded to. It is Sir Robert Wilson, 
 gentlemen, whose presence here as a witness, should it be necessary 
 to call him, prevents me from saying, so strongly as I could wish, what, 
 in common with every one, I do most sincerely feel that there is not 
 among all the brave men of whom the corps of officers in the British 
 army is composed, one, to whom the country, considering his rank 
 and the time of his service, is more indebted one who has more dis- 
 tinguished himself by his enthusiastic, I had almost said romantic, 
 love of the service one who has shown himself a more determined, 
 I may really say personal, enemy of the ruler of France, or a faster 
 friend to the cause and the person of his own Sovereign, and of his 
 Royal Allies. This gallant officer, in the year 1794, published a tract 
 " On the means of improving and re-organising the Military Force of 
 this Empire." It was addressed to Mr. Pitt, then minister of the 
 country, and whose attention, as well as that of the author, was at 
 that time directed to whatever was likely to improve our military sys- 
 tem to encourage the obedience, and exalt the character of the sol- 
 dier already in the army arid to promote the recruiting of it from 
 among those who had not yet entered into the service. He mentions 
 a great variety of circumstances which deter men from enlisting, and 
 render those who do enter of less value to the profession. Among 
 others, he mentions the term, the duration of their service. He says, 
 in a language powerful indeed, and strong, but anything rather than 
 libellous, " It is strange that in a free country, a custom so repugnant 
 to freedom, as enlisting for life, and to the particular character of the 
 British constitution, should ever have been introduced; but more sin- 
 gular, that the practice should have been continued after every other 
 nation in Europe had abandoned it as impolitic, and as too severe an 
 imposition upon the subject." " If in those countries," he proceeds, 
 " where the inferior orders of society are born in vassalage, and where 
 the will of the sovereign is immediate law, this power has been relin- 
 quished, in order to incline rnen voluntarily to enlist, surely there is 
 strong presumptive evidence that the general interests of the service 
 are improved, instead of being injured, by this more liberal considera- 
 tion." He then goes on to illustrate the same topic in terms still more 
 expressive of the warmth of his feelings upon so interesting a ques- 
 tion "The independence of an Englishman," says he, " naturally 
 recoils at the prospect of bondage, which gradually produces discon- 
 tent against the bent even of inclination." " How many men," he 
 adds, in yet more glowing words but which I am far from blaming 
 for I should have held him cheap, indeed, if, instead of giving vent 
 to his sentiments in this free and appropriate manner, he had offered 
 them as coldly and as drily as if he were drawing out a regimental 
 return. "How many men are there who have not now the faintest
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. 23 
 
 wish to leave their own estates, even for a journey into another county, 
 but who, if restrained by any edict from quitting England, would 
 find this island too narrow to contain them, would draw their breath 
 convulsively, as if they craved free air, and feel all the mental anguish 
 of a prisoner in a dungeon? What is the inference to be now fairly 
 drawn from the perseverance in the system of enlisting for life? Is it 
 not that the British service is so obnoxious and little conciliating, that, 
 if the permission to retire were accorded, the ranks would be alto- 
 gether abandoned, and the skeleton only remain, as an eternal and 
 mournful monument of the wretchedness of a soldier's condition? Is it 
 not a declaration to the world, that the service is so ungrateful to the 
 feelings of the soldiery, that when once the unfortunate victim is 
 entrapped, it is necessary to secure his allegiance by a perpetual state 
 of confinement?" He then advances, in the course of his inquiry, to 
 another topic; and in language as strong, as expressive of his honest 
 feelings, and therefore as appropriate and praise worthy, lie talks' of the 
 service in the West India islands, and even goes so far as to wish 
 those colonies were abandoned. I am net disposed to follow him in 
 this opinion; I cannot go so far. But God forbid I should blame him 
 for holding it; or that, for making his sentiments public, I should 
 accuse him of having written a libel on that service, of which he is 
 at once the distinguished ornament and the zealous friend. It might 
 bear, perhaps, an insinuation that such a topic was inflammatory that 
 it had a tendency to excite discontent among the soldiers and to deter 
 men from entering into the service. But far from imputing that to 
 the gallant officer, I respect him the more for publishing a bold and 
 downright opinion for expressing his feelings strongly; it is the best 
 proof that he felt keenly. lie proposes no less than that the West 
 India islands should be given up, in order to improve our means of 
 defence at home. He says, " It is, however, to be hoped, that the day 
 is not remote, when our colonies shall cease to be such a claim upon 
 the active population of this country: that charnel-house must be 
 closed for ever against the British troops. The soldier who dies in 
 the field is wrapped in the mantle of honor, and the paM of glory is 
 extended over his relatives; but in a warfare against climate, the 
 energy of the man is destroyed before life is extinguished; he wastes 
 into an inglorious grave, and the calamitous termination of his exist- 
 ence offers no cheering recollection to relieve the affliction of his loss." 
 Did Sir Robert Wilson mean to excite the brave and ill-fiitcd regiments 
 to mutiny and revolt, who were already enclosed in those charnel- 
 houses? or did he mean to deter persons from enlisting in those regi- 
 ments, who might otherwise have been inclined to join them? Did 
 he mean to address any of the regiments under actual orders for the 
 West India service, and to excite revolt among them, by telling every 
 one who read the passage I have cited, that which it so forcibly puts 
 to all soldiers under such ordrrs " Whither arc you going? You arc 
 rushing into a charnel-house!" Far be it from me to impute such 
 motives it is impossible! The words I have read arc uttered in the 
 discussion of a general question a question on which he speaks
 
 24 MILITARY FLOGGING. 
 
 warmly, because he feels strongly. And pursuing the same course of 
 reasoning in the same animated style, he comes to another and an 
 important part, both of his argument and of the question in which we 
 are now engaged. 
 
 In considering the nature of the tenure by which a soldier wears 
 his sword; in considering that honor is to him what our all is to every 
 body else; he views several parts of our military system as clashing 
 in some sort with the respect due to a soldier's character; and, fired 
 with a subject so near his heart, he at once enters into the question of 
 military punishments, paints in language not at at all weaker nor less 
 eloquent than that of the publication before you in language that 
 does him the highest honor the evils that result from the system of 
 flogging, as practised in our army. He says, " The second and equal- 
 ly strong check to the recruiting of the army, is the frequency of cor- 
 poral punishment." Proceeding to enlarge on this most interesting 
 point, in the course of his observations he uses such expressions as 
 these. After judiciously telling us, that "it is in vain to expect a 
 radical reform, until the principle of the practice is combated by argu- 
 ment, and all its evil consequences exposed by reasoning," he adds 
 this assertion, for which every one must give him credit "Be this, 
 however, as it may, I feel convinced that I have no object but the 
 good of the service." He says, that " Sir Ralph Abercrombie was 
 also an enemy to corporal punishments for light offences; his noble 
 and worthy successor, whose judgment must have great influence, 
 Lord Moira, General Simcoe, and almost every general officer in the 
 army, express the same aversion continually, but they have no power 
 of interference." Of that interference, then, he thinks there is no 
 prospect, unless by reason and argument, and by freely discussing it, 
 we can influence the opinions of the country and the legislature a 
 proposition to which all of us must readily assent. And he thus pur- 
 sues " I feel convinced that I have no object but the good of the 
 service, and, consequently, to promote the commander-in-chief's views, 
 and that my feelings are solely influenced by love of humanity, a 
 grateful sense of duty to brave men, and not by a false ambition of 
 acquiring popularity," a motive which I am sure no one will im- 
 pute to him. "If," he adds, "I did not think the subject of the most 
 essential importance, no motive should induce me to bring it forward; 
 if I was not aware that, however eager the commander-in-chief was 
 to interpose his authority, the correction of the abuse does not alto- 
 gether depend upon his veto, and cannot, with due regard to the pe- 
 culiar circumstances of his situation, be required to emanate abruptly 
 from him. My appeal is made to the officers of the army and militia, 
 for there must be no marked discrimination between these two services, 
 notwithstanding there may be great difference in their different modes 
 of treating the soldiery. I shall sedulously avoid all personal allu- 
 sions the object in view is of greater magnitude than the accusation 
 of individual malefactors. I shall not enter into particulars of that 
 excess of punishment which has, in many instances, been attended 
 with the most fatal consequences. I will not. by quoting examples,
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. 25 
 
 represent a picture in too frightful a coloring for patient examination." 
 He then says, " The present age is a remarkable epoch in the history 
 of the world civilisation is daily making the most rapid progress, 
 and humanity is triumphing hourly over the last enemies of mankind; 
 but whilst the African excites the compassion of the nation, and 
 engages the attention of the British legislature, the British soldier, 
 their fellow-countryman, the gallant, faithful protector of their liberties, 
 and champion of their honor, is daily exposed to suffer under the 
 abuse of that power with which ignorance or bad disposition may be 
 armed." "There is no mode of punishment so disgraceful as flog- 
 ging, and none more inconsistent with the military character, winch 
 should be esteemed as the essence of honor and the pride of manhood; 
 but when what should be used but in very extreme cases, as the 
 ultimum supplicium, producing the moral death of the criminal, 
 becomes the common penalty for offences in which there is no moral 
 turpitude, or but a petty violation of martial law, the evil requires 
 serious attention." Here he appeals with a proud and exulting recol- 
 lection to the practice of the regiment in which he had begun his 
 military life. " Educated," says he, " in the 15th light dragoons, I 
 was early instructed to respect the soldier; that was a corps before 
 which the triangles were never planted;" meaning the triangles 
 against which men are tied up when they receive the punishment of 
 flogging. "There," he adds, in the same language of glowing satis- 
 faction, contrasting the character of his favorite corps with that 
 debasement which the system of flogging elsewhere engenders 
 " There," he exclaims, "each man felt an individual spirit of indepen- 
 dence; walked erect, as if conscious of his value as a man and a 
 soldier; where affection for his officer, and pride in his corps, were so 
 blended, that duty became a satisfactory employment, and to acquire, 
 for each new distinction, the chief object of their wishes. With 
 such men every enterprise was to be attempted, which could be exe- 
 cuted by courage and devotion, and there was a satisfaction in 
 commanding them which could never have been derived from a sys- 
 tem of severity." He proceeds, "There is no maxim more true than 
 that cruelty is generated in cowardice, and that humanity is insepara- 
 ble from courage. The ingenuity of officers should be exercised to 
 devise a mode of mitigating the punishment, and yet maintaining 
 discipline. If the heart be well disposed, a thousand different methods 
 of treating offences will suggest themselves; but to prescribe positive 
 penalties for breaches of duty is impossible, since no two cases are 
 ever exactly alike. Unfortunately, many officers will not give them- 
 selves the trouble to consider how they can be merciful; and if a 
 return was published of all regimental punishments within the last 
 two years, the number would be as much a subject of astonishment 
 as regret. I knew a colonel of Irish militia, happily now dead, who 
 flogged, in one day, seventy of his men, and I believe punished several 
 more the next morning; but, notwithstanding this extensive correction, 
 the regiment was by no means improved. Corporal punishments 
 never yet reformed a corps; but they have totally ruined many a man 
 VOL. i. 3
 
 26 MILITARY FLOGGING. 
 
 who would have proved under milder treatment, a meritorious soldier. 
 They break the spirit, without amending the disposition; whilst the 
 lash strips the back, despair writhes round the heart, and the miserable 
 culprit, viewing himself as fallen below the rank of his fellow-species, 
 can no longer attempt the recovery of his station in society. Can 
 the brave man, and he endowed with any generosity of feeling, forget 
 the mortifying vile condition in which he was exposed? Does not, 
 therefore, the cat-o-nine-tails defeat the chief object of punishment, 
 and is not a mode of punishment too severe, which forever degrades 
 and renders abject? Instead of upholding the character of the soldier, 
 as entitled to the respect of the community, this system renders him 
 despicable in his own eyes, and the object of opprobrium in the state, 
 or of mortifying commiseration." 
 
 He is now about to touch upon a topic which I admit to be of some 
 delicacy. It is one of the topics introduced into the composition 
 before you: but a man of principle and courage, who feels that he 
 has a grave duty to perform, will not shrink from it, even if it be of 
 a delicate nature, through the fear of having motives imputed to him 
 by which he was never actuated, or lest some foolish person should 
 accuse him of acting with views by which he was never swayed. 
 Accordingly, Sir Robert Wilson is not deterred from the performance 
 of his duty by such childish apprehensions; and, having gone through 
 all his remarks of which I have read only a small part, and having 
 eloquently, feelingly, and most forcibly summed it up in the passage 
 I have just quoted, he says, " It is a melancholy truth, that punish- 
 ments have considerably augmented, that ignorant and fatal notions 
 of discipline have been introduced into the service, subduing all the 
 amiable emotions of human nature. Gentlemen who justly boast 
 the most liberal education in the world, have familiarised themselves 
 to a degree of punishment which characterises no other nation in 
 Europe." " England," (he adds pursuing the same comparative 
 argument on which so much has this day been said,) " England should 
 not be the last nation to adopt humane improvements;" and then, 
 coming to the very point of comparison which has been felt by the 
 Attorney-general as the most offensive, Sir Robert Wilson says: 
 "France allows of flogging only in her marine; for men confined 
 together on board ship require a peculiar discipline, and the punish- 
 ment is very different from military severity. The Germans make 
 great criminals run the gauntlet;" thus illustrating the principle lhat 
 in no country, save and except England alone (to use the words 
 of those defendants), is this mode of punishment by flogging adopted. 
 
 Gentlemen, it is not from the writings of this gallant officer alone 
 that I can produce similar passages, though, perhaps, in none could I 
 find language so admirable and so strong as his. I shall trouble you, 
 however, with no more references, excepting to an able publication 
 of another officer, who is an ornament to his profession, and whose 
 name, I dare say, is well known amongst you; I mean brigadier- 
 general Stewart, of the 95th regiment, the brother of my Lord Gal- 
 loway. This work was written while the plans, which 1 have already
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. 27 
 
 mentioned, were in agitation for the improvement of the army; and 
 the object of it is the same with that of Sir Robert Wilson, to show 
 the defects of the present system, and to point out the proper reme- 
 dies. "Without (he begins) a radical change in our present military 
 system, Britain will certainly not long continue to be either formidable 
 abroad, or secure at home." This radical change in our system is 
 merely that which I have already detailed. Pie says, after laying 
 down some general remarks, "If this view of the subject be correct, 
 how will the several parts of our present military system be recon- 
 ciled to common sense, or to any insight into men and things?" He 
 then mentions the chief defects in. the system, such as perpetuity of 
 service, and the frequency of corporal punishments; and in discussing 
 the latter subject, he says, "No circumstance can mark a want of 
 just discrimination more than the very general recurrence, in any 
 stage of society, to that description of punishment which, among the 
 same class of men, and with the alteration of the profession alone, 
 bears the stamp of infamy in the estimate of every man. The fre- 
 quent infliction of corporal punishment in our armies, tends strongly 
 to debase the minds and destroy the high spirit of the soldiery. It 
 renders a system of increasing rigor necessary; it deprives discipline 
 of honor, and destroys the subordination of the heart, which can alone 
 add voluntary zeal to the cold obligations of duty. Soldiers of natu- 
 rally correct minds, having been once punished corporally, generally 
 become negligent and unworthy of any confidence. Discipline re- 
 quires the intervention of strong acts to maintain it, and to impress 
 it on vulgar minds; punishment may be formidable, but must not 
 be familiar; generosity, or solemn severity must at times be equally 
 recurred to; pardon or death have been resorted to with equal success; 
 but the perpetual recurrence to the infliction of infamy on a soldier 
 by the punishment of flogging, is one of the most mistaken modes for 
 enforcing discipline which can be conceived." And then, alluding to 
 the same delicate topic of comparison, which, somehow or other, it 
 does appear no man can write on this subject without introducing 
 I mean the comparative state of the enemy's discipline and our own 
 he says: " In the French army a soldier is often shot, but lie rarely 
 receives corporal punishment; and in no other service is discipline 
 preserved on truer principles." Gentlemen, I like not the custom, 
 which is too prevalent with some men, of being over-prone to praise 
 the enemy, of having no eyes for the merits and advantages of their 
 own country, and only feeling gratified when they can find food for 
 censure at home, while abroad all is praiseworthy and perfect. I 
 love not this propensity to make such a comparison; however it is 
 sometimes absolutely necessary, though it may always be liable to 
 abuse: but in an oflicer like General Stewart or Sir Robert Wilson, it 
 has the merit not only of being applicable to the argument, but in 
 those men who have fought against that enemy, and who, in spite of 
 his superior system, have beaten him, (as beat him we always do, 
 when we meet him on any thing like fair terms,) in such men it has 
 the grace of liberality as well as the value of truth; and it not only
 
 28 MILITARY FLOGGING. 
 
 adds a powerful reason to their own, but shows them to be above 
 little paltry feuds shows them combating with a manly hostility 
 and proves that the way in which they choose to fight an enemy, is 
 confronting him like soldiers in the field, and not effeminately railing 
 at him. In the French army, General Stewart says, a soldier is often 
 shot, but he rarely receives corporal punishment, and "in no other 
 service," he adds, "is discipline preserved on truer principles." "I 
 know the service," he means to say; "I have had occasion to see it 
 in practice I have served with Austrians, Prussians, and Swedes 
 but in no service is discipline preserved on truer principles than in the 
 French; and, therefore, it is that I quote the example of the French, 
 whose discipline is preserved on principles too true, alas! for our ill- 
 fated allies. It is, therefore, I quote the French army, and in order 
 to show that the change I recommend in our own, is necessary for 
 the perfection of its discipline, and to save us from the fate of those 
 allies." 
 
 Such are the opinions of these gallant officers, but whether they 
 are right or wrong I care not such are the opinions of other brave 
 and experienced officers, expressed in language similar to that which 
 you have heard; in such terms as they deemed proper for supporting 
 the opinions they held. Do I mean to argue, because these officers 
 have published what is unfit and improper, that, therefore, the 
 defendants have a right to do the same? Am I foolish enough? Do 
 I know so little of the respect due to your understandings? Am I so 
 little aware of the interruption I should instantly and justly meet 
 from the learned and noble judge, who presides at this trial, were I 
 to attempt urging such a topic as this? Do I really dare to advance 
 what would amount to no less than the absurd, the insane proposition, 
 that if one man has published a libel, another man may do so too? 
 On the contrary, my whole argument is at an end, if these are libels. 
 If General Stewart and Sir Robert Wilson have exceeded the bounds 
 of propriety, and those passages which I have read from their works 
 are libels, their publication by them would form not only no excuse 
 for the defendants, but would be an aggravation of their fault, if I, 
 their counsel, had ventured, in defending one libel, to bring other 
 libels before you. But it is because I hold, and you must too, that 
 these officers are incapable of a libellous intention; because you well 
 know, that these officers, when they wrote in such terms, were inca- 
 pable of the design of sowing dissension among the troops, and deter- 
 ring men from entering into the army; it is because you know that, 
 of all men in this court and in this nation, there are no two persons 
 more enthusiastically attached to the country and the service; it is 
 because you know as well as I do, that no two men in England are 
 more entirely devoted to the interests of the British army, or bear a 
 deadlier hate to all its enemies; it is because you must feel that there 
 is not an atom of pretext for charging them with such wicked inten- 
 tions, or for accusing them of a libellous publication; it is for this 
 reason, and for this alone, that I have laid before you what they have 
 thought and written upon the subject matter of the composition which
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. 29 
 
 yon are now trying. I entertain no small confidence that you are 
 prepared to go along with me, in my conclusion, that, if they conld 
 publish such tilings, without the possibility of any man accusing them 
 of libel, the mere fact of these things being published is no evidence 
 of a wicked or seditious intention: that you are, therefore, prepared 
 to view the publication on its own merits; and, considering how 
 others, who could not by possibility be accused of improper motives, 
 have treated the same subject, you will feel it your duty to acquit the 
 defendants of evil intention, when they shall appear to have handled 
 it in a similar manner. 
 
 Gentlemen, I entreat you now to look a little towards the composi- 
 tion itself on which the Attorney-general has commented so amply, 
 With respect to the motto, which is taken from an eloquent address of 
 his to a jury upon a former occasion, there is nothing in that, which 
 makes it necessary for me to detain you. In whatever way these 
 words may have originally been spoken, and however the context 
 may have qualified them, even if they bore originally a meaning quite 
 different from that which in their insulated state they now appear to 
 have; I apprehend, that a person assuming, as is the fashion of the 
 day, a quotation from the words of another as a text, may fairly take 
 the passage in whatever sense suits his own purpose. Such at least 
 has been the practice, certainly, from the time of the Spectator I 
 believe much earlier; nor can the compliance with this custom prove 
 any intention good or bad. A writer takes the words which he finds 
 best adapted to serve for a text, and makes them his motto: some 
 take a line, and even twist it to another meaning, a sense quite oppo- 
 site to its original signification; it is the most common device, a mere 
 matter of taste and ornament, and is every day practised. 
 
 Let us now come to the introduction, which follows the text or 
 motto. The writer, meaning to discuss the subject of military punish- 
 ments, and wishing to oiler his observations on the system of punish- 
 ment adopted in our army, in order to lay a ground-work for his 
 argument, and in case any reader should say, "You have no facts to 
 produce; this is all mere declamation" for the purpose of securing 
 such a ground work of fact as should anticipate and remove this objec- 
 tion; to show that these military punishments were actually inflicted 
 in various instances, and to prove from those instances the necessity 
 of entering into the inquiry; he states fairly and candidly several cases 
 of the punishments which he is going to comment upon, lie says, 
 " Corporal Curtis was sentenced to receive one thousand lashes, but 
 after receiving two hundred, was on his own petition permitted to 
 volunteer into a regiment on foreign service." Enough would it 
 have been for the argument to have said, that Corporal Curtis had 
 been sentenced to receive one thousand lashes; but the author owns 
 candidly that on receiving two hundred, the prisoner was allowed, 
 and at his own request, to enter into a regiment on foreign service. 
 Then he mentions the case of William Clifford, a private in the seventh 
 royal veteran battalion, who was lately sentenced to receive one thou- 
 sand lashes; does he stop there? No, he adds the reason; and the 
 
 3*
 
 30 MILITARY FLOGGING. 
 
 reason turns out to be one which, if anything can justify such a punish- 
 ment, you will admit would be a justification. He says, candidly, 
 what makes against his own argument; he says it was " for repeatedly 
 striking and kicking his superior officer." He adds, that he under- 
 went part of his sentence, by receiving seven hundred and fifty lashes 
 at Canterbury, in presence of the whole garrison. He next mentions 
 another instance of some persons of the 4th regiment of foot, being 
 sentenced to receive two thousand six hundred lashes, and giving the 
 reason, he says, it was " for disrespectful behavior to their officers." 
 He then states the case of Robert Chilman,a private in the Bearstead 
 and Mailing regiment of local militia, who was lately tried, this author 
 tells us, by a court-martial, "for disobedience of orders and mutinous 
 and improper behavior while the regiment was embodied." His 
 offence he thus sets forth almost as fully as if he was drawing up the 
 charge; nay, I will venture to say, the charge upon which the court- 
 martial proceeded to trial, was not drawn up more strongly and dis- 
 tinctly. He subjoins to these facts the notice, that his authorities are, 
 the London Newspapers. 
 
 Having thus laid the foundation and ground-work of his reasoning, 
 he comments upon the subject in words which, as they have been 
 read twice over, once by the Attorney-general, and once by Mr. Low- 
 ten, it is unnecessary for me to repeat; I would only beg of you to 
 observe, that, in the course of his argument, he has by no means 
 departed from the rule of fairness and candor which he had laid down 
 for himself in the outset. He brings forward that which makes against 
 him, as well as that which makes for him; and he qualifies and guards 
 his propositions in a way strongly indicative of the candor and fair- 
 ness of his motives. After having stated his opinion in warm language, 
 in language such as the subject was calculated to call forth: after 
 having poured out his strong feelings in a vehement manner, (and 
 surely you will not say that a man shall feel strongly and not strongly 
 express himself,) must he be blamed for expressing himself as these 
 two gallant officers have done, though, perhaps, in language not quite 
 so strong as theirs? Having thus expressed himself, he becomes 
 afraid of his reader falling into the mistaken notion of his meaning, 
 an error which, notwithstanding the warning, it would seem the 
 Attorney-general has really fallen into, the error of supposing that he 
 had been too much inclined to overlook the errors in the French 
 system, and that he who had argued against our discipline, and in 
 favor of the enemy's, might be supposed too generally fond of the 
 latter. Apprehensive of a mistake so injurious to him, and feeling 
 that it was necessary to qualify his observations, in order to protect 
 himself from such a misconception, he first says, " Let it not be sup- 
 posed that we intend these remarks to excite a vague and indiscri- 
 minate sentiment against punishment by military law." You perceive, 
 gentlemen, that before proceeding to guard his reader against the idea 
 of his general partiality to the French system, he stops for the pur- 
 pose of correcting another misrepresentation another mistake of his 
 meaning into which also the Attorney-general has repeatedly been
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. 31 
 
 betrayed this day. The writer, fearing lest he should not have 
 guarded his reader, and especially his military reader if lie should 
 have one, against the supposition of his being an enemy to military 
 punishment, in the general, states distinctly, that severe punishment 
 is absolutely necessary in the army; and he proceeds to express him- 
 self in words which are nearly the same as those used by the Attorney- 
 general, for the purpose of showing that there was something enor- 
 mous in attacking the system of corporal punishment. The Attorney- 
 general says, he is endeavoring to inflame the subjects of this country 
 against the whole penal code of the army; he is endeavoring to take 
 away the confidence of the soldier in those military regulations which 
 must be enforced, while we have an army at all. All this is mere 
 rhetoric exactly so thought the author of this work. He was afraid 
 some person might fall into the same mistake, and accordingly he 
 warns them against this error; he says, " Let it not be supposed that 
 we intend these remarks to excite a vague and indiscriminate senti- 
 ment against punishment by military law; no; when it is considered 
 that discipline forms the soul of an army, without which it would at 
 once degenerate into a mob; when the description of persons which 
 compose the body of what is called an army, and the situation in 
 which it is frequently placed, are also taken into account, it will, we 
 are afraid, appear but too evident that the military code must still be 
 kept distinct from the civil, and distinguished by great promptitude 
 and severity. Buonaparte is no favorite of ours, God wot!" Then, 
 with respect to the French mode of punishment and our own, he 
 observes, " It may be said he (Buonaparte) punishes them (his troops) 
 in some manner. That is very true; he imprisons his refractory troops, 
 occasionally in chains, and in aggravated cases he puts them to death." 
 Is this not dealing fairly with the subject? Is this keeping out of 
 sight every thing that makes against his argument, and stating only 
 what makes for it? Is he here mentioning the French military punish- 
 ments, to prove that we ought to abandon the means of enforcing our 
 military discipline? No! he does not argue so unfairly, so absurdly. 
 His argument did not require it; he states that the French punish their 
 soldiers in a manner which I have no doubt some will think more 
 severe than flogging: he states, that Buonaparte punishes his refractory 
 troops with chains, and with the highest species of all human punish- 
 ment with death. This is exactly the argument of the defendants, 
 or of the author of this composition; and it is the argument of all 
 those who reprobate the practice of flogging. They contend that he 
 (Buonaparte) does not, and that we ought not to flog soldiers; but that 
 he punishes them with chains or death, and so ought we. They 
 maintain, and many of the first authorities in this country maintain, 
 and always have maintained, that for those offences for which one 
 thousand lashes are inflicted, death itself should be inflicted, but not 
 flogging; that the more severe but more safe and appropriate punish- 
 ment is to be preferred. The argument is not used out of compassion 
 to the soldier, not for the purpose of taking part with him. He Joes 
 not tell him who has been guilty of mutiny, " Your back is torn by
 
 32 MILITARY FLOGGING. 
 
 the lash; you are an injured man, and suffering unmerited hardships: 
 you who have kicked and beat your officer, ought not to be punished 
 in so cruel a way, as by being tied to the triangles and lacerated with 
 whipcords;" this is not what he tells the soldier. No! He says, 
 "The punishment you receive is an improper punishment altogether, 
 because it is hurtful to military discipline because it wounds the 
 feelings of the soldier, arid degrades him in his own estimation 
 because it ruins irretrievably many a man who might be reclaimed 
 from irregular courses, and saves the life only, but without retaining 
 the worth of him who, like you, has committed the highest offences; 
 therefore such a punishment is in no instance fit to be inflicted. But 
 do not think that you are to get off without the severest punishment, 
 you, who have been guilty of mutiny; do not think that military 
 punishments ought not to be more severe than the civil; my opinion, 
 indeed, is, that you ought not to be flogged, because there are reasons 
 against that practice, wholly independent of any regard for you; but 
 then I think that you ought for your offences to be confined in chains, 
 or put to death. 7 ' It is not tenderness towards the soldier; it is not 
 holding up his grievances as the ground for mutiny; it is a doctrine 
 which has for its object the honor of all soldiers; it proceeds from a 
 love of the military service; it is calculated to raise that service, and 
 by raising it, to promote the good of the country. These are the 
 motives, these are the views of this train of argument. Instead of 
 holding out the idle dream, that the soldier ought not to be punished, 
 he addresses himself to the subject, solely on account of the system 
 of which the soldier forms a part; solely on account of the effect which 
 his punishment may produce on the army: but as to the individual 
 soldier himself, he holds the very language of severity and discipline; 
 he tells him in pretty plain, nay, in somewhat harsh terms, that strictness 
 is necessary in his case, and that he must be treated far more rigorously 
 than any other class of the community. Furthermore, he tells him, 
 that a severer punishment than even flogging, is requisite, and that, 
 instead of being scourged, he ought to be imprisoned for life, or shot. 
 He then goes to another topic, but it is almost unnecessary to proceed 
 farther with the qualifications of his opinion; he says, " We despise 
 and detest those who would tell us, that there is as much liberty now 
 enjoyed in France as there is left in this country." Is this the argu- 
 ment is this the language of a person who would hold up to admira- 
 tion what our enemies do, and fix the eye of blame only on what 
 happens at home? Is this the argument, from which we are to infer, 
 that he looked across the channel to pry out the blessings enjoyed by 
 our enemies in order to stir up discontent among ourselves? If such 
 had been his intention, was this vehement expression of contemptuous 
 indignation against those who are over-forward to praise the French, 
 likely to accomplish such a purpose? Surely such expressions were 
 more than his argument required. He goes out of his way to repro- 
 bate men of unpatriotic feelings; men whose hearts are warm towards 
 the enemies of their country. It was the gist of his argument to show 
 that the French discipline being superior to ours (as in the opinion of
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. 33 
 
 Sir Robert Wilson and General Stewart, it appears to be), we ought 
 to seek the amendment of our system by availing ourselves of the 
 example of our enemies; but he says, " Do not believe I am against 
 punishing the soldier because I am averse to flogging him, or that I 
 belong to the description of persons who can see nothing in the con- 
 duct of our enemies deserving censure." On the contrary lie warns 
 the soldier that rigor of discipline is his lot, and that he must expect 
 the severest infliction of punishment which man can endure; and he 
 purposely, though I admit unnecessarily for his argument, inveighs 
 against too indiscriminate an admiration of France, in words which I 
 shall repeat, because they are important, and because my learned 
 friend passed hastily over them; "We despise and detest those who 
 would tell us, that there is as much liberty now enjoyed in France as 
 there is left in this country." 
 
 Such, gentlemen, is the publication on which you are called upon 
 to decide. It is an argument qualified by restrictions and limitations, 
 upon an important branch of the military policy of this country. In 
 pursuing this argument, it was necessary the writer should choose a 
 topic liable to misconception the comparison of the system of the 
 French army with our own. His argument could not be conducted 
 without a reference to this point. But to preserve it from abuse, he 
 guards it by the passage I have read, and by others which are to be 
 found in the body of the composition. And he is now brought before 
 you for a libel, on this single ground, that he has chosen such topics 
 as the conduct of his argument obviously required; and used such 
 language as the expression of his opinions naturally called forth. 
 
 Gentlemen, I pray you not to be led away by any appearance of 
 warmth, or even of violence, which you may think you perceive, 
 merely upon cursorily looking over this composition. I pray you to 
 consider the things I have been stating to you, when you are reflect- 
 ing upon the able and eloquent remarks of the Attorney-general; more 
 especially upon the observations which he directed to the peculiarly 
 delicate and invidious topics necessarily involved in the argument. 
 The writer might have used these topics without the qualifications, 
 and still I should not have been afraid for his case. But he has not 
 so used them; he has not exceeded the bounds which anything that 
 deserves the name of free discussion must allow him. He has touch- 
 ed, and only touched, those points which it was absolutely impossible 
 to pass over, if he wished to trace the scope of his opinions; and those 
 points he had a right to touch, nay, to dwell upon, (which he has not 
 done,) unless you are prepared to say that free discussion means this 
 that I shall have the choice of my opinion, but not of the argu- 
 ments whereby I may support and enforce it or that I shall have the 
 choice of my topics, but must only choose such as my adversary 
 pleases to select for me; unless you are prepared to say that that is a full 
 permission freely to discuss public measures, which prescribes not 
 merely the topics by which my sentiments are to be maintained, but 
 also tho language in which my feelings are to be conveyed. If there 
 is a difference in the importance of different subjects if one person
 
 34 MILITARY FLOGGING. 
 
 naturally feels more strongly than another upon the same matter if 
 there are some subjects on which all men, who in point of animation 
 are above the level of a stock or a stone, do feel warmly; have they 
 not a right to express themselves in proportion to the interest which 
 the question naturally possesses, and to the strength of the feelings it 
 excites in them? If they have no such power as this, to what, I de- 
 mand, amounts the boasted privilege? It is the free privilege of a 
 fettered discussion; it is the unrestrained choice of topics which an- 
 other selects; it is the liberty of an enslaved press; it is the native 
 vigor of impotent argument. The grant is not qualified, but resumed 
 by the conditions. The rule is eaten up with the exceptions; and he 
 who gives you such a boon, and calls it a privilege or a franchise, 
 either has very little knowledge of the language he uses, or but a slight 
 regard for the understandings of those whom he addresses. I say, 
 that in the work before you, no individual instance of cruelty has 
 been selected for exaggerated description, or even for remark; no spe- 
 cific facts are commented on, no statements alluded to in detail. 
 Scarcely are the abuses of the system pointed out; though the elo- 
 quent author might well have urged them as arguments against a 
 system thus open to abuse. It is the system itself which is impeached 
 in the mass; it is the general policy of that system which is called in 
 question; and it is an essential part of the argument, a part necessary 
 to the prosecution of the inquiry, to state that the system itself leads 
 to cruelty, and that cruelty cannot fail to be exercised under it. This 
 is among the most important of the arguments by which the subject 
 must needs be discussed: and if he has a right to hold, and publicly 
 to state an opinion on this subject at all, he has not only a right, but 
 it is his duty to enter into this argument. 
 
 But then the Attorney-general maintains, that it tends to excite mu- 
 tiny, and to deter persons from enlisting in the army. Now, gentle- 
 men, I say, that this fear is chimerical; and I now desire you to lay 
 out of your view everything I have stated from the high authorities 
 whose sentiments you have heard. I request you to leave out of your 
 sight the former arguments urged by me, that you cannot impute any 
 evil intention to their books, because you cannot to their authors. I 
 ask you to consider, whether there is any visible limit to the argument 
 which the Attorney-general has pressed on you, when he asserts that 
 the tendency of this publication is, to excite disaffection among the 
 soldiers, and to prevent the recruiting of the army? I ask you whe- 
 ther any one of those points which are the most frequently discussed, 
 at all times, and by persons of every rank, can in any conceivable 
 way be discussed, if we are liable to be told, that in arguing, or in 
 remarking upon them, our arguments have a tendency to excite sedi- 
 tion and revolt? What are the most ordinary of all political topics? 
 Taxes, wars, expeditions. If a tax is imposed, which in my conscience 
 I believe to be fraught with injustice in its principle, to originate in the 
 most perverse impolicy, and to produce the most galling oppression 
 in the manner of its collection; can I speak otherwise than severely? 
 or, however moderately I may express myself, can I speak otherwise
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. 35 
 
 than most unfavorably of it, even after the legislature has sanctioned 
 it, and laid it on the country? And yet the Attorney-general may say, 
 " What are you about? You are exciting the people to resistance; 
 you are touching the multitude in the tenderest point, and stirring 
 them up to revolt against the tax-gatherers, by persuading them that 
 the collection of the imposts is cruel and oppressive, and that the go- 
 vernment has acted unwisely or unjustly, in laying such burthens 
 on the people." Is it rebellious to speak one's sentiments of the ex- 
 peditions sent from this country? If a man should say, " You are 
 despatching our gallant troops to leave their bones in those charnel- 
 houses, as Sir Robert Wilson calls them, which you are constantly pur- 
 chasing in the West Indies with the best blood of England; you are 
 sending forth your armies to meet, not the forces of the enemy, but 
 the yellow fever; you are pouring your whole forces into Walcheren, 
 to assail, not the might of France, nor the iron walls of Flanders, but 
 the pestilential vapors of her marshes." Such things have been 
 uttered again and again, from one end of the empire to the other, not 
 merely in the hearing of the country, but in the hearing of the troops 
 themselves; but did any man ever dream of sedition, or a wish to 
 excite mutiny being imputed to those millions by whom such remarks 
 have been urged? Do those persons of exalted rank, and of all ranks, 
 (for we all have a right to discuss such measures, as well as the states- 
 men who rule us;) do those men within the walls of Parliament, and 
 without its walls, (for surely all have equally the right of political dis- 
 cussion, whether they have privilege of Parliament or no;) do all who 
 thus treat these subjects purposely mean to excite sedition? Did any 
 one ever think of imputing to the arguments of persons discussing in 
 this way those matters of first-rate national importance, that their re- 
 marks had a tendency to produce revolt, and excite the soldiers to 
 mutiny? 
 
 There is another subject of discussion which instantly strikes one; 
 it is suggested to you immediately by the passage which I formerly 
 read from Sir Robert Wilson; indeed he introduces it in lamenting 
 the treatment of the soldier. I am referring to those signal, and I 
 rejoice to say, successful efforts made by our best statesmen of all 
 parties, on behalf of the West Indian slaves. Could there be a more 
 delicate topic than this? a more dangerous subject of eloquence or 
 description? Can the imagination of man picture one that ought to 
 be more cautiously, more scrupulously handled, if this doctrine is to 
 prevail, that no person must publish what any person may suspect of 
 having a tendency to excite discontent and rebellion? And yet were 
 not all the speeches of Mr. Pitt, (to take but one example,) from 
 beginning to end, pictures of the horrors of West Indian slavery? 
 And did any one in the utmost heat of the controversy, or in the 
 other contentions of party or personal animosity, ever think of ac- 
 cusing that celebrated statesman of a design to raise discontent, or 
 shake the tranquillity of the colonies, although lie was addressing his 
 vehement and impassioned oratory to islands where the oppressed 
 blacks were to the tyrannizing whites, as the whole population, com-
 
 36 MILITARY FLOGGING. 
 
 pared with a few hundred individuals scattered over the West Indian 
 seas? I say, if this argument is good for any thing, it is good for all; 
 and if it proves that we have no right to discuss this subject, it proves 
 that we have no right to discuss any other which can interest the 
 feelings of mankind. 
 
 But I dare say, that one circumstance will have struck yon, upon 
 hearing the eloquent address of my learned friend. I think you must 
 have been struck with something which he would fain have kept out 
 of sight. He forgot to tell you that no discontent had been perceived, 
 that no revolt had taken place, that no fears of mutiny had arisen 
 that, in short, no man dreamt of any sort of danger from the inflic- 
 tion of the punishment itself! The men therefore are to see their 
 comrades tied up, and to behold the flesh stripped off from their 
 bodies, aye, bared to the bone! they are to see the very ribs and bones 
 from which the mangled flesh has been scourged away without a 
 sentiment of discontent, without one feeling of horror, without any 
 emotion but that of tranquil satisfaction? And all this the bystanders 
 are also to witness, without the smallest risk of thinking twice, after 
 such a scene, whether they shall enter into such a service! There 
 are no fears entertained of exciting dissatisfaction among the soldiers 
 themselves by the sight of their comrades thus treated: there is, it 
 seems, no danger of begetting a disinclination to enlist, among the 
 surrounding peasantry, the whole fund from which the resources for 
 recruiting your army are derived! All this, yon say, is a chimerical 
 fear; perhaps it is: I think quite otherwise; but be it even so; let 
 their eyes devour such sights, let their ears be filled with the cries of 
 their suffering comrades; all is safe; there is no chance of their being 
 moved; no complaint, no indignation, not the slightest emotion of pity, 
 or blame, or disgust, or indignation can reach their hearts from the 
 spectacle before them. But have a care how, at a distance from the 
 scene, and long after its horrors have closed, you say one word upon 
 the subject! See that you do not describe these things (we have not 
 described them); take care how you comment upon them (we have 
 not commented upon them); beware of alluding to what has been 
 enacting (we have scarcely touched any one individual scene); but 
 above all, take care how you say a word on the general question of 
 the policy of the system; because, if you should attempt to express 
 your opinions upon that subject, a single word of argument one 
 accidental remark will rouse the whole army into open revolt! The 
 very persons upon whom the flogging was inflicted, who were not to 
 be excited to discontent at the torture and disgrace of their sufferings; 
 they will rebel at once, if you say a word upon the policy of such 
 punishments. Take no precautions for concealing such sights from 
 those whom you would entice into the service; do not stop up their 
 ears while the air rings with the lash; let them read the horrors of 
 the spectacle in the faces of those who have endured it. Such things 
 cannot move a man: but description, remark, commentary, argument, 
 who can hear without instantaneous rebellion? 
 
 Gentlemen, I think I have answered the argument of the Attorney-
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. 37 
 
 general upon the dangers of such discussions; and in answering it, I 
 have removed the essential part of the information, without which this 
 prosecution cannot be sustained; I mean the allegation of evil, ma- 
 licious, and seditious intention, on the part of the author and publisher 
 of the work. I have done I will detain you no longer; even if I 
 could, I would not go further into the case. The whole composition 
 is before you. The question which you are to try, as far as I am 
 able to bring it before you, is also submitted to you; and that question 
 is, whether, on the most important and most interesting subjects, an 
 Englishman still has the privilege of expressing himself as his feelings 
 and his opinions dictate? 
 
 VOL. i. 4
 
 CASE 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN DRAKARD 
 
 MARCH 13, 1811. 
 
 SPEECH, 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY Yoil 
 
 have all of you listened with that attention which the importance of 
 the trial demands, to the very able and ingenious opening of the 
 counsel for the prosecution; and you have heard the various com- 
 ments which he deemed necessary to support his case, upon the 
 alleged meaning which they have been pleased to impute, and on the 
 various tendencies they have ascribed to the publication whose merits 
 you are to try. I confess I was struck in various parts of that learned 
 gentleman's speech, with the remarkable ingenuity required to twist 
 and press into his service the different passages of the composition on 
 which he commented; and although from knowing as I do, the con- 
 text of those passages, with which, however, you were not made 
 acquainted; and from knowing, as many of you may, the character 
 of the person accused; and from having besides a little knowledge of 
 the general question of military policy; I had no doubt that the 
 learned counsel would fail to make out the intention which he has 
 imputed to the defendant's publication; yet I am ready to admit, that 
 every thing which ingenuity could do in this way lie has done. 
 
 I shall not, gentlemen, follow the learned counsel through the dif- 
 ferent parts of his speech; but in conformity to my own wishes, and 
 in compliance with the positive injunctions of the defendant, I shall 
 attempt to lay before you the composition itself, and to make for him 
 a plain, a candid, and a downright defence. Even if I had the same 
 power of twisting and perverting passages in a direction favorable to 
 my client, which my learned friend has shown in torturing them 
 against him, I am precluded from using it, not merely by the instruc- 
 tions I have received, but also by my own intimate persuasion that 
 such a line of conduct is far from necessary that it would be even 
 hurtful to my case.
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. 39 
 
 For the same reason, I shall abstain from following another example 
 set me by the learned counsel for the prosecution. He alluded, and 
 that pointedly, to a case distantly hinted at in this publication that 
 of Cobbett, who was convicted by a jury of publishing a libel; my 
 learned friend took care to remind you of this circumstance, and from 
 a line or two of the publication which you are now to try, he inferred 
 that the subject of that libel was connected with the subject of mili- 
 tary punishment. Perhaps, gentlemen, I might with equal justice, 
 and even with better reason, allude to another case more directly con- 
 nected with the one now in our view. Were I so disposed, I might 
 go out of my way, and leave the merits of the present question; I 
 might find no difficulty, since the example has been set me by my 
 learned friend, and his conduct would justify me should I follow it 
 in calling your attention to a case of libel more resembling the pre- 
 sent; a case which was very recently tried, but in which a conviction 
 was not obtained. If I were so disposed, I might refer you to a case, 
 in which twelve honest men, unbiassed by any interest, determined 
 that the great bulk of the present publication is not libellous nor 
 wicked. But I will not avail myself of this advantage; I will rather 
 suffer the experiment to be tried, in the person of this defendant, of 
 the uniformity of juries; whether that which has been shown by a 
 judicial decision to be innocent at Westminster can be adjudged guilty 
 at Lincoln. I might put it to you whether the intentions of this 
 defendant can be so wicked as they have been represented by my 
 learned friend, when twelve upright men in another court have held 
 his publication to be not only lawful, but innocent have solemnly 
 pronounced it to be by no means libellous. But, gentlemen, I will 
 waive all these advantages in the outset, and confine your attention 
 exclusively to that which is stated to be the evil of this publication. 
 I beg you not only to lay out of your view the case of Cobbett, who 
 was tried for a libel that has no possible connection with the present 
 case, but I will also ask you to lay out of your view the acquittal of 
 the Hunts, who have been tried for publishing at least three-fourths, 
 and that which is called the most obnoxious part, of the contents of 
 what you are now to try. All this 1 desire you to lay out of your 
 view. I beg you to confine your attention solely to the merits of this 
 newspaper; and if you shall be of opinion, after I have gone through 
 the publication much less particularly than my learned friend, and 
 without any of his ingenious, and, he must pardom me if I say, his 
 sophistical comments; if, after collecting the defendant's intentions, 
 from comparing the different parts of his dissertation, you should be 
 of opinion that he has wished fairly to discuss a question of great 
 importance and interest to the country; that in discussing this ques- 
 tion he has not merely propounded his arguments, but also given vent 
 to those feelings which are utterly inseparable from the consideration 
 of his subject; if, in doing so, he has only used the right and privilege 
 which all men in this free country possess, of discussing and investi- 
 gating every subject, and of calling to account the rulers of the 
 country, (which indeed he has not done); if, in discussing the manner
 
 40 MILITARY FLOGGING. 
 
 in which our rulers, not of the present day only, but of past times 
 also, have conducted themselves, he has only exercised an unques- 
 tionable and unquestioned right the right of delivering his senti- 
 ments and of enforcing them; if this shall appear, you will be 
 instructed by a higher authority than mine, and it will. I am sure, be 
 your pleasure, as it will be your duty, to pronounce the defendant not 
 guilty. 
 
 This, gentlemen, then, is the question you have to try; and that 
 you may be enabled to decide it, I shall have little more to do than to 
 request your attention to the publication itself. I do not wish you to 
 forget the comments of the counsel for the prosecution, but I shall 
 take the liberty of laying the defendant's discussion before you more 
 fairly and impartially than it has already been laid before you by that 
 learned gentleman. It was the intention of the writer to take up a 
 subject of high importance a question universally interesting a 
 case that has often been alluded to by different writers. Gentlemen, 
 he had a right to form his opinion upon this question; he had a right 
 to form it, although it happened to be inconsistent with the policy of 
 the country. I do not say that his is a just opinion; that it is a cor- 
 rect opinion; but it happens to be his opinion, and he has a right to 
 maintain it. If he thinks that the practice which he reprobates is 
 detrimental to the service of this country; that it produces reluctance 
 among the inhabitants to enter into the military state; nay, that it has 
 the worst effect on the country itself; I have yet to learn that there is 
 any guilt in entertaining such an opinion I have yet to learn that it 
 is criminal to promulgate such an opinion on such a subject. And if, 
 in support of his sentiments, he resorts to topics of various descrip- 
 tions, I shall hold him innocent for so doing, until I am informed from 
 good authority, that a person may hold an opinion, but that he must 
 be mute upon the subject of it; that he may see the question only in 
 a certain point of view; that he must look at it through a certain par- 
 ticular medium; that he must measure the strength of his argument 
 by a scale which my learned friend alone seems to have in his pos- 
 session till I learn all this from a higher authority than the learned 
 counsel, I shall continue to hold the doctrine that it is the privilege of 
 a subject of this country to promulgate such fair and honest argu- 
 ments as appear to him best adapted to enforce his fair and honest 
 sentiments. 
 
 Gentlemen, how does the publisher of this piece proceed to declare 
 and maintain what he believes? He begins, " ONE THOUSAND LASHES." 
 This is a short head, as it were, to the article. It is headed in capital 
 letters, in the same way as other articles in the newspapers are usu- 
 ally headed. If you will look into this very paper, gentlemen, you 
 will find that other articles begin in the same way. Here is " SPAIN 
 AND PORTUGAL," and another article has "FRANCE" for its head, 
 and another " MISCELLANEOUS NEWS." Then follows a motto, or 
 text, which the author has chosen to give force to what was to follow; 
 and, according to the practice of newspaper writers, he took it from 
 the speech of a celebrated law officer, choosing to quote him, because
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. 41 
 
 he differed from his opinion. Meaning, therefore, to argue with that 
 officer, he could not have done hetter than seize hold of a passage 
 from his speech; and lie then proceeds to give a statement of the 
 facts and sentiments which are connected with that passage; using 
 various arguments, sometimes even a pleasantry or two, as is no 
 uncommon method when we wish to come at the truth. lie then 
 states various instances of the punishment which he condemns, 
 because he is about to discuss or rather to show the impolicy of the 
 particular mode in which military punishments are now so frequently 
 inflicted. The learned counsel for the prosecution told you, that in 
 order to obtain this collection of facts, the defendant had ransacked 
 all the newspapers. Unquestionably, gentlemen, he had ransacked 
 the papers; and if he had not brought together a statement of facts 
 if he had not in this way laid the groundwork for what was to 
 follow what would the ingenuity of that learned gentleman have 
 suggested? You would have been told that all the defendant had 
 said was mere vindictive turbulent clamor against a practice long 
 received, yet but seldom put in force, and that the author had found 
 it impossible to produce any instances of the infliction of that punish- 
 ment. The author was aware that ingenious men would start this 
 objection against him, and that it would have been a fair one there- 
 fore he gets rid of it by laying the groundwork of his argument in a 
 statement of facts. The language of what he has done is then 
 simply this. " Do not think that what I am writing about is a mere 
 chimera. You have the real existence of it before your eyes. It is 
 taking place every day." 
 
 Gentlemen, the manner in which he states these facts deserves 
 particular attention. Had it been his desire to put the thing in the 
 worst point of view, in order to support his opinion, he would not 
 have written as he has done: for when a man is heated by his subject, 
 and is looking out for arguments, he seldom finds those that are un- 
 favorable to his opinion; if they are of that complexion, he turns his 
 eyes away from them; and I might refer you to the speech of the 
 learned counsel for the prosecution as a proof of this. That learned 
 gentleman very carefully turned his eyes off from those passages 
 which would have given a different character to the piece from that 
 which he imputes to it; or if he did not entirely omit them, he read 
 them over to you in a low tone of voice, which was certainly not the 
 general pitch of his speech. It does appear, then, that this gentle- 
 man is not without the very fault which he charges, but charges 
 wrongfully, upon my client. Had the defendant been anxious to im- 
 press the opinion upon his readers, that the punishments which he 
 instances were inflicted without cause; had he wished to raise forcibly 
 the indignation of his readers against such punishments punishments 
 which he thinks injurious to the army he would not have dwelt as 
 he has done on the faults of the offenders. But he lias not taken 
 such an advantage of the question he was agitating as my friend has 
 taken of him. He has told the circumstances which made against 
 the offenders, and lias, in so doing, offered a justification of the uunisli- 
 
 4*
 
 42 MILITARY FLOGGING. 
 
 ment. In the first instance, it must be notorious to all of you, gentle- 
 men, that in the case of corporal Curtis, the world was ignorant of the 
 transaction, but that rumors of so unfriendly a kind were abroad, as 
 to induce a patriotic and honorable member to bring the case before 
 the House of Commons. He conceived its circumstances to be diffe- 
 rent from what they really were, and that great blame attached to the 
 persons who sat on the court-martial. Now, might not the writer of 
 this article have availed himself of the ignorance of the people, in 
 order to give point to his case, and a false interpretation to the con- 
 duct of the court-martial? But he does nothing of the kind; for being 
 ignorant of the true state of the case, he avows his ignorance. The 
 case was unknown till Colonel Wardle brought it before Parliament 
 nine or ten days ago. The defendant could not, therefore, have told 
 you why the sentence was passed upon Curtis, but he could have told 
 you the rumors that were then in circulation, and which now appear 
 to have been ill-founded, but which were then so feasible, as to have 
 become the subject of a motion in Parliament. This case, then, the 
 defendant left on its own merits; in all the other cases he has told you 
 distinctly the occasion that gave rise to the punishment, and so 
 explicitly, that my learned friend, with his usual ingenuity, was desi- 
 rous of founding a charge upon his statement. Of Clifford he observes, 
 that he was sentenced to receive a thousand lashes, for repeatedly strik- 
 ing and kicking his superior officer, "Onethosand lashes!" Forwhat? 
 Might he not have stopped here? Had he been disposed to arraign 
 the sentence of the court-martial as any thing rather than candid and 
 fair, he would have stopped here, and not advanced to mention the 
 occasion of the punishment; but, by the mention of it, he fritters away 
 the whole force of the case that my learned friend would feign make 
 out. He says " for kicking and striking his officer;" and for such an 
 offence no punishment can be too severe, although a particular mode 
 of punishment may be improper. In one point of view the author 
 loses by this statement, and undoes what he had been attempting to 
 do; but the subject is taken up again in the course of his discussion, 
 and then he tells you, with apparent reasonableness, that whatever 
 the demerit of the offender may be, though he may deserve death, 
 though he may deserve worse than death, yet the punishment appoint- 
 ed for him is wrong in point of policy, though not in point of justice. 
 Other cases also he mentions in his motto, where the men had been 
 found guilty of all the charges against them; and, in the last case, 
 instead of stopping short when he mentions the sentence, which 
 would have aggravated the statement, and left the presumption that 
 it had been executed, he fairly tells you that the lashes were not 
 inflicted, and that the man was marched to Chatham. It appears, 
 then, that these instances are necessarily given as the groundwork of 
 the discussion, and are given in the fairest manner. 
 
 Then comes the discussion itself. I shall not trouble you with again 
 reading much of it, because it has been repeated to you so often. On 
 the perusal you will find that the writer supports his opinion by argu- 
 ments which are present to the mind of every man who has consid-
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. 43 
 
 ered the subject. If they were not so now, they might be by a little 
 recollection, because they have been so forcibly urged out of Parlia- 
 ment and in Parliament, where many members have eloquently 
 spoken against that mode of punishment which prevails in our army, 
 and, it is a melancholy truth, in our army alone. The statement made 
 by this writer is copied, but not copied closely, after that which has 
 proceeded from the pens of some of the ablest officers that have adorn- 
 ed our service. It is an echo, but not a full one, of what has been 
 repeatedly said in the House of Commons. His arguments have 
 been used over and over again, and are, in fact, embodied in the sys- 
 tem which the late administration carried into practice. The argu- 
 ments then used are now employed by the writer, but in a mitigated 
 form, in support of an opinion which he deems it incumbent on him 
 to state strongly to his countrymen. These arguments are various, 
 and are not only applicable to his discussion, but I might state that 
 his discussion could not have been carried on without them. Some of 
 them may be dangerous, but the subject required that the danger 
 should be incurred. One of them is founded on a comparison of ours 
 with the French service. Gentlemen, it is true, and it is a deplorable 
 truth, that the latter is one of the first services in the woild in point 
 of discipline, in point of valor, and of every thing that constitutes a 
 great army. Next to our army, there is none in the world that has 
 gained so many victories, that has been so constantly sure of success; 
 none in which the discipline is so well observed, and where more is 
 made out of the discipline. This is a deplorable fact, and every Euro- 
 pean power but our own has suffered grievously from its truth. Now, 
 was it not natural, nay, necessary to the argument of this writer, that 
 he should appeal to the French discipline, and ask in the outset, if such 
 punishments as he condemns are inflicted by it? If he had not said 
 that in the French army the practice of flogging is unknown, nothing 
 could have made up for so great and obvious a deficiency in his state- 
 ment. Would not the answer have been ready in the mouth of every 
 one, u Do not other armies flog as well as we?" Would any who 
 approves of flogging in our army, and is capable of reading two lines, 
 read thus far, and not stop to exclaim, " Ours is not the only army 
 that flogs its soldiers. France does the same, and a great deal worse; 
 it is a necessary measure; it isvlhe lot of a soldier, he must submit to 
 it; there is no arguing against it." This would have been the answer 
 of all the military men, and of all others who are favorable to the 
 practice. 
 
 After the writer of this discourse had introduced his statement, 
 aware that it was of a delicate nature, that he had got upon danger- 
 ous ground, and that his motives might be abused, he limits his asser- 
 tions by the plainest qualifications. " Here," said he, " I enter my 
 protest against any unfair deduction from what I have advanced;" 
 and if anything surprised me more than the rest in the speech of my 
 learned friend, it was the manner in which he passed over the limita- 
 tions of the writer. I shall not go through the whole of them, but 
 will give you a specimen or two. He says, "Let it not be supposed
 
 44 MILITARY FLOGGING. 
 
 that we intend these remarks to excite a vague and indiscriminating 
 sentiment against punishment by military law; no, when it is consi- 
 dered that discipline forms the soul of an army, without which it 
 would at once degenerate into a mob when the description of persons 
 which compose the body of what is called an army, and the situations 
 in which it is frequently placed, are also taken into account, it will, we 
 are afraid, appear but too evident, that the military code must still be 
 kept distinct from the civil, and distinguished by greater promptitude 
 and severity." 
 
 Thus it is that he vindicates himself, and I should have thought he 
 had protected himself from misrepresentation, had I not heard the 
 remarks of-the learned counsel, who, with his usual ingenuity, twisted 
 against him the whole of his argument respecting the hardships to 
 which the soldier is exposed. What could he by this proviso have 
 thought to protect himself against, if not against the insinuation that 
 he was exciting the soldiers to mutiny, by telling them that they are 
 hardly dealt by in being placed under military law, in having no trial 
 by jury, and in being subject to such punishments as are known in 
 our army alone? He had this in his eye; he was aware of the pro- 
 bability of the charge; and to protect himself from it, he protests 
 in plain terms against such a construction being put upon his asser- 
 tions. 
 
 In like manner, he was aware of a certain class of men ever ready 
 to cry out, that he was one of those persons who are ever officious 
 in promoting the wishes of the enemy, who are always dissatisfied 
 with what is done at home, who love nothing but what is French, 
 and who are fond of raising a comparison, that they may exhibit 
 French customs in a favorable light. In order to caution his readers 
 against such a construction of his words, on the one hand, and to 
 guard them on the other, against entertaining such wrong, such un- 
 English sentiments, he proceeds in the words I shall now read to 
 you. "Buonaparte is no favorite of ours, God wot! But if we were 
 to balance accounts with him on this particular head, let us see how 
 matters will stand." lie might have appealed to his general conduct 
 since he edited this newspaper; he might have appealed to the bold 
 and manly tone with which lie has frequently guarded his readers 
 against the designs and character of Buonaparte; but not satisfied with 
 this, he says explicitly, " Do not think that I am holding up the 
 enemy to your approbation; it is upon this one subject, and on this 
 one alone, that 1 am of opinion there is not so great a difference 
 against his, and in favor of our system." This is the sum and sub- 
 stance of his argument, and this it is both loyal and laudable in him 
 to maintain. Had he been the evil-minded, seditious, libellous person 
 he is described to be, would he have taken occasion to state this? 
 Had he been disposed to hold up Buonaparte's conduct to the admira- 
 tion of the soldiers, would he, in the passage which I am now going 
 to read to you, have dwelt unnecessarily on the severities of the 
 French discipline? Alluding to the French ruler's treatment of his 
 soldiers, he observes, " It may be said, that he punishes them in
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. 45 
 
 some manner that is very true; he imprisons his refractory troops, 
 occasionally in chains, and in aggravated cases he puts them to 
 death." Need this writer have told his readers all this? Might he 
 not have stopped when he said that it was true the French soldier 
 was punished in some manner? Need he have particularised the 
 awful punishments which are inflicted upon that soldier in proportion 
 to his crime? He does, in fact, mention punishments existing under 
 the French discipline, which, in the opinion of the majority, will, I 
 am afraid, appear more severe than Hogging. Although it may he 
 his idea that hogging is worse than death, yet I believe, were we to 
 poll the country around, we should find but few who would not 
 rather take the punishment of the lash than be sent out to be shot. 
 It may be very well in talk to give the preference to death, but if it 
 come to the point, I believe that there are but few men, nay, but few 
 soldiers, who would not gladly commute it for flogging. How, then, 
 can it be said of this writer, that he holds up to admiration the system 
 Buonaparte? Not content with stating that he punishes his troops in 
 some manner, he must add, and unnecessarily for his argument, that 
 he imprisons them in chains, and puts them to death; that is to say, 
 he inflicts upon them the most awful of human punishments. 
 
 One would have thought, gentlemen, that this might have been 
 enough to vindicate the writer's intentions, and save him from misre- 
 presentation. Even supposing he had no other readers than soldiers, 
 one would have thought that he had taken precaution enough to pre- 
 vent mistakes; but ho adds another passage, which puts his intentions 
 beyond all doubt, " We despise and detest those who would tell us 
 that there is as much freedom now enjoyed by France as there is left 
 in this country." This, gentlemen, I will read again, because it was 
 hurried over by the learned counsel. " We despise and detest those 
 who would tell us that there is as much liberty now enjoyed in France 
 as there is left in this country. We give all credit to the wishes of 
 some of our great men, yet while anything remains to us in the shape 
 of free discussion, it is impossible that we can sink into the abject 
 slavery in which the French people are plunged." Gentlemen, can 
 this writer be called a favorer of France? Could stronger language 
 against the system of the French government have been used? He 
 speaks of the " abject slavery" in which the French people are plunged; 
 and he adds in the same strain, and indeed as a very natural conse- 
 quence, " we do not envy the general condition of French subjects." 
 There are many other passages in this publication, the general pur- 
 port of which is, that if ever a man had a strong opinion against the 
 character and measures of the ruler of France, at the same time 
 thinking highly of his military discipline an opinion which many of 
 our greatest men have held equally and conscientiously if ever a 
 man sent such an opinion forth to the world guarded by explanation, 
 and coupled with undeniable facts to support and illustrate it it is 
 the person on whose conduct you are now to pronounce your judg- 
 ment. 
 
 With respect to the passage in the middle of this publication, on
 
 46 MILITARY FLOGGING. 
 
 which much stress has been laid by the counsel for the prosecution, 
 because it was not included in the article for publishing which the 
 Hunts were tried; it contains a statement of the whole of the general 
 arguments usually urged against punishment by flogging, as applied 
 to the case of the militia force. These arguments have been often 
 discussed; they have been heard from the month of a Windham 
 downwards; and it has been usually admitted, that whatever may be 
 said for the punishment of flogging in the line, it is peculiarly inappli- 
 cable to the militia service. The usual arguments on this subject are 
 forcibly stated by the writer of this piece. In order to illustrate them, 
 lie takes an instance, and as the name of Chilman came in his way, 
 he makes use of it. But he guards his readers against supposing that 
 he imputes any blame to the court-martial which tried this man. The 
 writer has no sooner stated a case, and traced the description of it, 
 than he represents it, not as an individual instance, but " as being the 
 probable effects of the system." His language is this, " Do not 
 imagine that I have held up to your particular notice the court-martial 
 which has thus sentenced Chilman. I do not mean to confine your 
 attention to this particular instance. I take him as I should John-a- 
 Noakes, or anyone of the militia who is exposed to the same tempta- 
 tion, who, having been taken from his family by force, after commit- 
 ting certain irregularities, is punished in this dreadful and impolitic 
 way.-'' And by so doing the writer has only followed the example 
 of all the great authorities that have gone before him; their arguments 
 have turned upon the manner in which the militiamen are taken from 
 their homes, and the hardship of exposing them to this odious and 
 cruel punishment, when it was not their choice to enter or not to enter 
 the service; men who, having been accustomed to live under the 
 privileges of the civil law, are dragged away from its protection. And 
 worse words than these have been applied to the practice by our own 
 authorities. The writer, following the example of others, asks you 
 whether it be fair and humane to treat such men with the same severity 
 for a venial offence committed with a friend and companion, as you 
 inflict on him who enters voluntarily into the service, and him who 
 chooses to abandon for the rigors of the military, the mercies of the 
 civil law? Whether it is equal and just to visit both these with the 
 same cruel punishment? This is the drift and jet of this writer's argu- 
 ment. This is the way in which he was obliged to treat his subject; 
 and in this way he has followed the steps of the great characters in 
 our army who have written before him. 
 
 Gentlemen, before I go any farther, I will ask you to consider how far 
 we have already got in the case you are trying? It is admitted, indeed 
 it cannot be denied, that an Englishman has a right, which no power 
 on earth can take away from him, to form an opinion, I do not say 
 on the measures and character of our rulers; that right he certainly 
 has, but it is not involved in the present question, for this author has 
 done no such thing; it cannot, I say, be denied that an Englishman 
 has the privilege of forming his own opinion upon the policy, expe- 
 diency, and justice of the system that is adopted by his rulers. Having
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. 47 
 
 formed this opinion, it cannot be denied that he has a right to promul- 
 gate it; and surely it can no more be denied than the two first proposi- 
 tions can be disputed, that he has a right to support his own opinion 
 by his own arguments, and to recommend its adoption in what he may 
 deem the most efficacious manner. And, gentlemen, let me ask you fur- 
 ther, if you will withhold from him the privilege of appealing to such 
 topics as suggest themselves to his mind for the enforcement of his opin- 
 ion, and even for the ornament of his discourse? Are you to tie him 
 down to any particular set of subjects? Will you say to him, " Have 
 your opinion, but take care how yon make it known to the world?" 
 Will you say to him, " Support your argument, but in so doing, you 
 must choose those we shall point out to you; you must steer clear of 
 every thing that we do not approve of; you must take care to state no- 
 thing forcibly, to argue dully, to support your argument feebly, to illus- 
 trate it stupidly." Is this free discussion? Is this the way in which you 
 would have that which is done in this country compared with that 
 which is done in France? If we have any privilege more important 
 than another, gentlemen, it is, that we may discuss freely. And is it 
 by this straitened this confined this emasculated mode of discuss- 
 ing subjects, that every one of us must be regulated, who, when he 
 looks first at home, and then looks to France, is so thankful for being 
 born in this country? 
 
 But, gentlemen, I should like to ask, if this is to be the extent of 
 privilege which we are to enjoy? I have hitherto merely inquired 
 how far a man may go in support of his arguments by illustrating 
 them; but if I were to go a step farther, I should not much exceed 
 the bounds of my duty. Has not a person in this country a right to 
 express his feelings too? Since when is it (I would ask, that we may 
 know the era for the purpose of cursing it! by whom was the change 
 brought about, that we may know the author and execrate his 
 memory), that an Englishman, feeling strongly on interesting subjects, 
 is prevented from strongly and forcibly expressing his feelings? And 
 are the sufferings of British soldiers the only subject from which the 
 feelings of compassion should be excluded? Living as we do in an 
 age when charity has a wide and an undisputed dominion; in an age 
 when we see nothing but monuments of compassionate feeling from 
 one end of the country to the other; in which, not only at home, but 
 as though that was too confined a sphere, we are ransacking foreign 
 climes for new objects of relief; when no land is so remote, no place 
 so secluded, as not to have a claim on our assistance; no people so 
 barbarous or so strange as not to excite our sympathy: is this a period 
 in which we are to be told that our own soldiers may not claim our 
 mercy? Granting that they arc not barbarians granting that they 
 are not strangers, but are born among us, that they are our kinsmen, 
 our friends, inhabiting the same country, and worshiping at the same 
 altars granting that far from being unknown to us, we know them 
 by the benefits they have rendered us, and by the feeling that we 
 owe them a debt of gratitude never to be repaid I put it to you, 
 gentlemen, whether wo are to exclude them from what we give to all
 
 48 MILITARY FLOGGING. 
 
 mankind; from the benefit of our feelings and our sympathy; from 
 that universal law of nature which gives to all the victims of cruelty, 
 however distant, however estranged, a home, a settlement, in every 
 compassionate heart? Is this a discovery of the present time? But 
 it is unnecessary to put it more home to your bosoms. If any one 
 subject is nearer to our hearts than another, or ought to be so to 
 British subjects, it is the condition and treatment of our brave troops, 
 to whom we owe so much, to whom we owe a load of gratitude which 
 was never so heavy as it is at present, and in whom now all our 
 hopes aie centered. How, gentlemen, can you visit a person with 
 two years' imprisonment in a dungeon, who, feeling strongly upon a 
 subject of so much interest, expresses his feelings with that warmth 
 which he cannot but feel, and which it becomes him to show? If he 
 had no such feeling he would have been unworthy of his subject, and 
 having such feeling, had he shrunk from giving vent to it, he would 
 have proved his cowardice; he has, however, been particularly cautious; 
 he has done little more than reason the point; he has not given full 
 vent to his sentiments, but in as much as he has connected his emo- 
 tions with his argument, you are to take what he has said as a proof 
 of a sincere and an honest heart. 
 
 I have already stated to you that the opinions expressed in this 
 publication are not the sentiments of this author alone; but that they 
 were originally broached by the ablest men of the country; men 
 whose high rank in the army render them not the worst witnesses 
 for the defendant. I have now in my hand a work by Sir Robert 
 Wilson an officer whom to name is to praise but who, to describe 
 him in proper colors, ought to be traced through his whole career of 
 service, from the day he first entered the army, up to the present time; 
 whose fame stands upon record in almost every land where a battle 
 has been fought by the English troops, whether in this or in the last 
 war. It is perfectly well known to you that on one occasion by his 
 own personal prowess he saved the life of the Emperor of Germany, 
 for which service he received the honor of knighthood. You must 
 all know that afterwards through the campaign in Germany, when 
 serving with the allied armies, he rendered himself celebrated by his 
 skill and courage, as well as with our gallant army in Egypt. Bat 
 not merely is he an ardent friend to the British cause; ho is known 
 throughout the whole of the British army as one of its most enthu- 
 siastic defenders. Far from being a friend to Buonaparte of whom 
 and of his friends you have heard so much to-day nothing more 
 distinguishes him than an implacable hatred to that enemy of his 
 country. To so great a length has he carried this, that I believe there 
 is no spot of European ground, except England and Portugal, in 
 which he would be secure of his life; so hostile has been his conduct 
 and so plain and direct his charges against Buonaparte, that from the 
 period when he published his well-known work (containing aspersions 
 against that person, which for the honor of human nature one would 
 fain hope are unfounded) he has been held in an abhorrence by the 
 ruler of France, equal to that which Sir Robert Wilson has displayed
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. 49 
 
 against him. From 1816, when the plans for the regulation of the 
 army were in agitation, and when he published those opinions which 
 the defendant has now republished, up to the present time, he lias 
 not received any marks of the displeasure of the government, but on 
 the contrary has been promoted to higher and to higher honors; and 
 has at length been placed in a distinguished situation near the king 
 himself. During the discussions on our military system, when all 
 men of liberal minds were turning their attention to the subject, with 
 laudable promptitude and public spirit, he addressed a letter to Mr. 
 Pitt, and entitled it, "An Inquiry into the present State of the Military 
 Force of the British Empire, with a view to its Reorganisation" 
 that is to say, with a view to its improvement, Sir Robert Wilson, 
 with, perhaps objectionable taste, using the word reorganisation, 
 which is derived from the French. In this publication, the gallant 
 officer, animated by love for the army, and zeal for the cause of his 
 country, points out what he conceives to be the great defects of our 
 military system; and the greatest of all these lie holds to be the prac- 
 tice of flogging. He describes this punishment to be the great cause 
 which prevents the recruiting of the army, and which in one word, 
 produces all manner of mischief to the service ruining the character 
 of the soldier, and chilling his zeal. I dare say, gentlemen, that you 
 already begin to recollect something which you have heard this day; 
 I dare say you recollect that the defendant is expressly charged with 
 a wish to deter persons from enlisting, and to create dissatisfaction in 
 the minds of the soldiery because he wrote against flogging. But Sir 
 Robert Wilson, you now see, thinks that very opposite effects are to 
 be produced by altering the system. There are fifteen or twenty 
 pages of the pamphlet in my hand which contain an argument to 
 support this opinion. And when you shall hear how the subject is 
 treated by Sir Robert, you will perceive how impossible it is for a 
 person who feels, to avoid, in such a discussion, the use of strong 
 expressions. You will, as I read, see that Sir Robert comes from 
 generals to particulars at once, and describes all the mimitix of mili- 
 tary punishment. He first states that, "corporal punishment is a 
 check upon the recruiting of the army;" he then goes on, "My appeal 
 is made to the officers of the army and the militia, for there must be 
 no marked discrimination between these two services, notwithstanding 
 there maybe a great difference in their different modes of treating the 
 soldiery. I shall sedulously avoid all personal allusion," (and, gen- 
 tlemen, you will observe the present defendant has been equally 
 cautious not a single personal allusion is to be found throughout his 
 discussion.) "The object in view is of greater magnitude than the 
 accusation of individual malefactors." (Malefactors, gentlemen, a 
 much stronger word than can be found in the publication of the 
 defendant.) "I shall not enter into particulars of that excess of punish- 
 ment, which in many instances has been attended with the most fatal 
 consequences. I will not, by quoting examples, represent a picture 
 in too frightful a coloring for patient examination." Sir Robert Wil- 
 son then alludes to the crimes for which this dreadful punishment is 
 VOL. i. 5
 
 50 MILITARY FLOGGING. 
 
 inflicted. He says, "How many soldiers whose prime of life has been 
 passed in the service, and who have behaved with unexceptionable 
 conduct, have been whipped eventually for an accidental indiscretion. 
 Intoxication is an odious vice, and, since the Duke of York has been 
 at the head of the army, officers have ceased to pride themselves upon 
 the insensate capability of drinking; but, nevertheless, flogging is too 
 severe as a general punishment for what has been the practice of 
 officers." Here, you see, gentlemen, the gallant writer brings in aid 
 of his argument an allusion of a much more delicate nature than any 
 that has been made by the defendant. He speaks of the misconduct 
 of officers, and leads the mind to contrast the trivial consequences of 
 misconduct to them with the severe punishment that awaits the sol- 
 dier guilty of the same offence. A more delicate subject than this 
 cannot be imagined. It is as much as if he said, "Do not punish the 
 poor private so cruelly for a fault which his superior does not scruple 
 frequently to permit, and for which no chastisement is awarded to 
 him." Sir Robert proceeds "Absence from quarters is a great fault 
 and must be checked: but is there no allowance to be made for 
 young men, and the temptations which may occur to seduce such an 
 occasional neglect of duty?" Gentlemen, do you not immediately, 
 on hearing this, recur to the language used by the defendant when 
 describing the imaginary case of Robert Chilman? This is exactly 
 his argument; he too, thinks that allowance ought to be made for a 
 young man, particularly one forced into the service, who may, as he 
 says, after a hard day's exercise, meet with some of his companions, 
 and indulge somewhat beyond the bounds of sobriety; and he also 
 thinks what Sir Robert Wilson has thought and published before him, 
 that flogging is a very improper punishment to be inflicted on such a 
 person for such an indiscretion. The pamphlet then in glowing lan- 
 guage language much more forcible than that of the publication 
 which you have to try describes the ill effects of flogging. "Cor- 
 poral punishments never yet reformed a corps, but they have totally 
 ruined many a man, who would have proved, under milder treatment, 
 a meritorious soldier. They break the spirit without amending the 
 disposition." And now, I beseech you, mark the high coloring of 
 this officer, after all you have heard denounced against the description 
 of the defendant. " Whilst the lash strips the back, despair writhes 
 round the heart, and the miserable culprit viewing himself as fallen 
 below the rank of his fellow species, can no longer attempt the re- 
 covery of his station in society. Can the brave man, and he endowed 
 with any generosity of feeling, forget the mortifying, vile condition in 
 which he was exposed? Does not, therefore, the cat-o-nine-tails 
 defeat the chief object of punishment?" 
 
 Sir Robert Wilson then comes to the comparison between the 
 French military discipline and ours, on which so much stress has 
 been laid in support of the prosecution, and you will hear that this 
 defendant has said nothing on this subject which had not before 
 appeared in the pamphlet I have now in my hand. He says. " Gen- 
 tlemen who justly boast the most liberal education in the world, have
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. 51 
 
 familiarised themselves to a degree of punishment which characterises 
 no other nation in Europe," thus, in fact, supplying the defendant 
 with the words of this publication: " Here alone is still perpetrated," 
 &c. In a subsequent paragraph Sir Robert Wilson specifies France 
 by name, so essential was the notice of the French discipline to his 
 argument. He says, " England should not be the last nation to adopt 
 humane improvements. France allows of flogging only in her ma- 
 rine." In conclusion, the gallant officer appeals to the character of 
 the present age. which he says, " is a remarkable epoch in the history 
 of the world. Civilisation is daily making the most rapid progress, 
 and humanity is triumphing hourly over the last enemies of mankind. 
 But whilst the African excites the compassion of the nation, and 
 engages the attention of the British legislature the British soldier 
 their fellow-countryman the gallant, faithful protector of their 
 liberties, and champion of their honor, is daily exposed to suffer under 
 an abuse of that power, with which ignorance or a bad disposition 
 may be armed." 
 
 Gentlemen, I think, I may venture to say, that in this passage also 
 you recognise something which you have this day heard before. You 
 may recollect the humble attempt of the humble individual who now 
 addresses you, and who asked you whether those who feel so much 
 for strangers, might not be allowed to feel a little for the defenders of 
 their country. The only difference is, that Sir Robert Wilson's lan- 
 guage is more forcible more impressive. His picture stands more 
 boldly out, his language throughout is more glowing than that used 
 by the defendant, or by his advocate. 
 
 [Mr. Brougham then alluded to the opinions of General Stewart, 
 of the 95th regiment, who, when a brigadier-general, published 
 a pamphlet, entitled, " Outlines of a Plan for the General Reform 
 of the British Land Forces."] 
 
 This officer first asks, " How will the several parts of our present 
 military discipline be reconciled to common sense, or to any insight 
 into men and things?" and then proceeds to specify the errors in our 
 system which cannot be so reconciled. The chief of these is the 
 mode of punishment, which, it should seem, every friend to the 
 British army unites to condemn. He says, "The frequent infliction 
 of corporal punishment in our armies tends strongly to debase the 
 minds and destroy the high spirit of the soldiery; it renders a system 
 of increasing rigor necessary; it deprives discipline of the influence 
 of honor, and destroys the subordination of the heart, which can 
 alone add voluntary zeal to the cold obligations of duty." Again 
 "The perpetual recurrence to the infliction of infamy on a soldier by 
 the punishment of flogging, is one of the most mistaken modes for 
 enforcing discipline which can be conceived." And then, gentlemen, 
 as if there were some fatality attending the discussion of this question 
 as if there was something which prevented any one's touching the 
 subject without comparing the military discipline of France; with our 
 own General Stewart is scarcely entered on his argument before he 
 is in the middle of this comparison, lie says, ' In the French army
 
 52 MILITARY FLOGGING. 
 
 a soldier is often shot, but he rarely receives corporal punishment, 
 and in no other service is discipline preserved on truer principles." 
 You thus hear, gentlemen, what General Stewart says upon the 
 superior discipline of the French army; he holds it up as a pattern to 
 our service a service in which he is one of the most distinguished 
 individuals. 
 
 But lest it should be said that these were young officers (although 
 were we to reckon their campaigns, or even their victories, we might 
 esteem them old) lest deference may be denied to their opinions 
 because deficient inexperience and, above all, to show you that this 
 subject, the more it is considered, the more does it teem with vindi- 
 cations of the defendant to show you, that it is a subject calculated 
 not only to animate the feelings of the young, but even to melt the 
 chill of age to satisfy you that although emotion may have gene- 
 rally become blunt under the pressure of years, yet this is more than 
 compensated for by the longer experience of the mischiefs which 
 arise from the horrible system of flogging, an experience which occa- 
 sions the deliberate judgment of the old to rival the indignation of 
 the youthful I will now produce to you the publication of a veteran 
 a publication also intended to point out, for the purpose of doing 
 away with them, these defects which tarnish our military discipline. 
 I allude to a work from the pen of an officer in the highest ranks of 
 the service Lieutenant-general Money who, since the writing of 
 that work, has been promoted to the station of a full general. You 
 shall now hear what he says on the subject of flogging; he whose 
 years are numerous as his services, and who is esteemed one of the 
 strictest disciplinarians on the staff: an officer to whom the command 
 of a district has been entrusted, a signal proof of the confidence reposed 
 by government in his honor and military skill. You have been told 
 that attacking the scourge as applied to the backs of our soldiers, has 
 a tendency to injure the army, and to deter persons from entering 
 into it; General Money, you will find, speaks directly to these points, 
 and you will find him declaring, that this practice which our author 
 condemns, does itself occasion desertion, and deters persons from en- 
 tering into the military service of their country. The publication to 
 which I allude is, " A letter to the right honorable William Windham, 
 on the defence of the country at the present crisis, by Lieutenant-ge- 
 neral Money." He says, '' I beg leave, Sir, to submit to you, and 
 to his Majesty's ministers a measure, the adoption of which will, in 
 the opinion of every military man I have conversed with on the sub- 
 ject, bid fair to put a stop to desertion." This measure, which in the 
 opinion of every military man is likely to produce so desirable an 
 effect, you will find to be neither more nor less than the measure 
 which this defendant recommends, and has exerted himself to bring 
 about, namely the discontinuance of flogging. He goes on "When 
 a man deserts, and he is taken, he is liable to be shot: that, indeed, 
 is seldom inflicted for the first offence, but he is punished in a manner 
 that is not only a disgrace to a nation that boasts of freedom and its 
 humanity, but is an injury to the recruiting our army. It strikes such
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. 53 
 
 a terror into the peasantry of the country. The culprit is tied up to 
 the halberis, in the presence of the whole regiment, and receives six 
 or eight hundred lashes, sometimes a thousand. He faints! he 
 recovers, and faints again!! and some expire soon after the punish- 
 ment! It wounds my feelings when I rellect on the dreadful suffer- 
 ings of men I have seen and been obliged to see, thus cruelly punished; 
 and what other epithet can be used than cruel? I have told men 
 that I wished the sentence had been death; and true it is, that there 
 are men who have preferred death to the disgrace and punishment." 
 
 Gentlemen, I put to you these passages out of the different publi- 
 cations, published by those gallant, distinguished, and experienced 
 officers; and I ask you, whether you will send the defendant to a 
 dungeon for doing that which has procured them the highest honors 
 the favor of their sovereign, and the approbation of their country? 
 
 I inlreat you to reflect on the publication which is charged in the 
 indictment with being libellous; and which has been commented on 
 by the gentleman opposite; and I beg you would recall to mind the 
 comments he lias made upon it. He has told you it lias a tendency, 
 and must have been published with an intention to excite mutiny 
 and disaffection in our army, by drawing a contrast unfavorable to 
 our service when compared with the French; that it will induce the 
 soldiers to join the standard of France and to rebel against their offi- 
 cers; and lastly, that it will prevent persons from entering into the 
 service. Can Sir Robert Wilson, gentlemen, can General Stewart, or 
 can the veteran officer whose very expressions the writer has used, 
 by any stretch of fancy, be conceived to have been actuated by such 
 intentions? Were they such madmen as to desire to alienate the men 
 from their officers, and to disincline others from entering into the army 
 of which they were commanders, and of which they were the firmest 
 friends; to indispose men towards the defence of their own country, and 
 lead them to wish fora foreign and a French yoke? Can you stretch 
 your fancy to the thought of imputing to them such motives as these? 
 You see the opinions they have given to the world; with what argu- 
 ments, and with what glowing, I will even say violent language, they 
 have expressed themselves. And shall it be said that this defendant, 
 who uses language not nearly so strong, has published a work which 
 has such a fatal tendency, or that he was actuated by so infernal an 
 intention? An intention which in these officers would arue down- 
 right madness; but an intention which, in the author of this publi- 
 cation, would show him fit only for the society of demons! Unless 
 you are convinced, not only that what is innocent at Westminster is 
 libellous here, but, that what is commendable in these officers is dia- 
 bolical in the defendant, you cannot sentence him to a dungeon for 
 doing that which has obtained the kindness of the sovereign and the 
 gratitude of the country for those distinguished men. 
 
 I have just heard so much about invidious topics, about dangerous 
 subjects of discussion; I have seen so much twisting of expressions 
 to give them a tendency to produce disaffection, and 1 know not what 
 besides, in the people of this country that I am utterly at u loss to 
 
 5*
 
 54 MILITARY FLOGGING. 
 
 conceive any one subject, whether it relate to military discipline or to 
 civil polity, that is not liable to the same objection. I will put my 
 defence on this ground: If any one of those subjects which are com- 
 monly discussed in this country, and particularly of those relative to 
 the army, can be handled in a way to prevent expressions from being 
 twisted by ingenuity, or conceived by some to have a tendency to 
 produce discontent if any mode of treating such subjects can be 
 pointed out to me, in which we shall be safe, allowing the argument 
 of my learned friend to be just I will give up this case, and confess 
 that the intention of the defendant was that which is imputed to him. 
 Is there, to take an obvious instance, a subject more common-place 
 than that of the miserable defects which now exist in the commissa- 
 riat of our army? I only select this because it comes first to my 
 thoughts. Has it not always happened that in the unfortunate ne- 
 cessity of a retreat, all mouths have resounded with the ill conduct 
 of the commissary? Has it not been said in the hearing of the army 
 and of the country, that the distresses of our troops on a retreat were 
 increased by their want of food, owing to the inadequacy of our com- 
 missariat staff? But we have not only been in the habit of blaming 
 particular instances of neglect we have also taken upon ourselves 
 to blame the system itself. Nay, we have gone farther; we have 
 placed our commissariat in comparison with that of France, and 
 we have openly and loudly given the preference to the enemy's sys- 
 tem. And why may not the defendant do the same with reference 
 to another point of military discipline? Can you fancy a subject 
 more dangerous, or which is more likely to occasion mutiny and 
 revolt, than that of provisions, if you tell the soldier that through the 
 neglect of his government he runs the risk of being starved, while in 
 the same breath you add, that Bounaparte's troops are well supplied, 
 through the attention which he pays to this most important branch of 
 a general's duty? Yet, gentlemen, no one has ever been censured, 
 nor has it been said that it was his intention to excite confusion, be- 
 cause he has condemned that delicate part of our military system 
 which relates to providing the soldiers with food. 
 
 In truth, we must submit to these discussions, if we would have 
 any discussion at all. Strong expressions may, indeed, be pointed 
 out here and there in a publication on such topics, and one may be 
 more strong than another. When he is heated, a man will express 
 himself warmly. And, am I to be told, that in discussing a subject 
 which interests all men, no man is to express himself with force? Is 
 it the inflammatory tendency of this publication, or is it, in one word, 
 the eloquence with which the writer has treated his subject, that has 
 excited alarm and instigated the present prosecution? If he had 
 handled the matter dully, coldly, stupidly, he might have gone on to 
 the end of time; he would never have heard a breath of censure, 
 seen a line of information, or produced an atom of effect. If warmth 
 is not to be pardoned in discussing such topics, to what are the feel- 
 ings of men to be confined? 
 
 I shall, perhaps, hear Confine yourselves to such subjects as do
 
 MILITARY FLOGGING. 55 
 
 not affect the feelings to matters that are indifferent alike to all men; 
 go to arithmetic take up abstract points of law "tear passion to 
 tatters" upon questions in addition and subtraction be as warm as 
 you please on special pleading there is time sufficient for the work- 
 ings of the heart: but beware of what interests all mankind, more 
 especially your own countrymen; touch not the fate and fortune of the 
 British army. Beware of those subjects which concern the men who 
 advance but to cover themselves with victory, and who retreat but to 
 eclipse the fame of their valor by the yet higher glory of their patient 
 endurance; men who then return to their homes clothed in laurels, to 
 receive the punishment of the lash, which you inflict on the meanest 
 and most unnatural malefactors! Let us hear nothing of the " charnel 
 houses of the West Indies," as Sir Robert Wilson calls them, that 
 yawn to receive the conquerors of Corunna! Beware of touching 
 on these points; beware of every thing that would animate every 
 heart; that would make the very stones shudder as they re-echo your 
 sound, and awaken the rocks to listen and to weep! You must not 
 treat such subjects at all, or else you must do it coolly, regularly, gra- 
 dually, allowing yourselves to glow by some scale, of which my 
 learned friend is no doubt in possession; you must keep to a line 
 which is so fine that no eye but his can perceive it. 
 
 This may not be! this must not be! While we continue to live in 
 England it may not be, while we remain unsubdued by that egregious 
 tyrant, who persecutes all freedom, with a rancor which only op- 
 pressors can know; that tyrant against whom the distinguished 
 officers I have been quoting, wage a noble and an efficient resistance, 
 and against whom this defendant, in his humbler sphere, has been 
 zealous in his opposition; that tyrant whose last and most highly 
 prized victory is that which he has gained over the liberty of discus- 
 sion. Yes, gentlemen, while that tyrant enslaves his own subjects, 
 and turns them loose to enslave others, no man under his sway dares 
 attempt more than calmly and temperately to discuss his measures. 
 Writers in his dominions must guage their productions according to 
 the standard established by my learned friend, of which he has one 
 duplicate and Buonaparte's Attorney-general the other; they must 
 square their argument according to that rule; and adjust the warmth 
 of their language to a certain defined temperature. When they treat 
 of the tyrant's ambitious and oppressive policy; when they treat of 
 the rigors of his military conscription; they must keep to the line 
 which has this day been marked out in this court. Should they go 
 beyond that line should they engage in their subject with an honest 
 zeal, and treat it with a force likely to gain conviction that is to 
 say, should they treat it after the manner of the writer of this com- 
 position which is now before you they may lay their account with 
 being dragged forth to be shot without a trial, like the unhappy book- 
 seller of Nuremberg, or with being led in mockery to a court, and 
 after the forms of a judicial investigation are gone through, consigned 
 by the decision of the judges to years of imprisonment. 
 
 And yet, gentlemen, there is some excuse for Buonaparte, when he
 
 56 MILITARY FLOGGING. 
 
 acts in this manner. His government, as he well knows, is bottomed 
 in injustice and cruelty. If you search and lay bare its foundation, 
 you must necessarily shake it to its centre its safety consists in silence 
 and obscurity! Above all, is it essential to its power that the cruelty 
 of his military system should not be attacked, for on it does he rest his 
 greatness. The writer, therefore, who should treat in a nervous style 
 of the rigor of his conscription, could expect nothing but severe pun- 
 ishment. 
 
 But happily, things in this country are a little different. Our con- 
 stitution is bottomed in law and in justice, and in the great and deep 
 foundation of universal liberty! It may, therefore, court inquiry. Our 
 establishments thrive in open day they even flourish surrounded and 
 assailed by the clamor of faction. Our rulers may continue to dis- 
 charge their several duties, and to regulate the affairs of the state, 
 while their ears are dinned with tumult. They have nothing to fear 
 from the inquiries of men. Let the public discuss so much the bet- 
 ter. Even uproar is wholesome in England, while a whisper may be 
 fatal in France. 
 
 But you must take it with you, in deciding on the merits of this 
 publication, that it is not upon our military system that the defendant 
 has passed his reflections it is not our military system that he con- 
 demns. His exertions are directed to remove a single flaw which 
 exists on the surface of that system a speck of rottenness which 
 mars its beauty, and is destructive of its strength. Our military sys- 
 tem in general, he admires in common with us all; he animadverts 
 upon a taint and not upon its essence; upon a blot which disfigures 
 it, and not upon a part of its structure. He wishes you to remove an 
 excrescence which may be pulled away without loosening the founda- 
 tion, and the rest will appear the fairer, and remain so much the 
 sounder and more secure. 
 
 You are now, gentlemen, to say by your verdict whether the mere 
 reading of this publication taking all its parts together not casting 
 aside its limitations and qualifications, but taking it as it appears in 
 this paper, you are now to say, whether the mere perusal of it in this 
 shape is likely to produce those effects which have been described by 
 the counsel for the prosecution effects which have never yet been 
 produced by the infliction of the punishment itself. This considera- 
 tion, gentlemen, seems to deserve your very particular attention. If 
 you can say aye to this, you will then bring your verdict against the 
 defendant and not only against him, but against me. his advocate, 
 who have spoken to you much more freely than he has done and 
 against those gallant officers who have so ably condemned the practice 
 which he condemns and against the country which loudly and right- 
 fully demands an attention to its best interests and against the stabi- 
 lity of the British Constitution!
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 IN DEFENCE OF 
 
 HER MAJESTY QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 STATE OP PUBLIC OPINION. THE MILAN COMMISSION. 
 
 FEW events have excited a more deep and general interest among the people of 
 England, than the arrival of Queen Caroline in June 1820, and the proceedings 
 which the king, her hushand, immediately compelled his ministers, most reluctantly, 
 most clearly against their own fixed opinions, and therefore most certainly against 
 their duty, to institute against Her Majesty, for the purpose of degrading her and 
 dissolving the marriage. Nor was there the least difference of opinion in the coun- 
 try, whether among those who sided with the Queen, or those who blamed her 
 most, upon the injustice and intolerable cruelty of this conduct on the King's part. 
 No one pretended to doubt that, from the time of her first coming to England, and 
 her marriage with the Prince of Wales, she had been treated as no wife before ever 
 was, and that afterti few months' permission to reside nominally under the same roof, 
 but without enjoying any other rights of a wife, she had been compelled to live 
 apart from her husband, and had even received a written notice from him that this 
 separation must be considered as for life. That every engine of annoyance had 
 been set in motion to render her life miserable was also universally known; 
 and every one was aware, that, after all temptations had been thrown in the way to 
 seduce her from her conjugal duty, that a pretext might be obtained for justifying 
 the continual ill treatment of which she was the victim, she had triumphed over 
 all those arts, escaped those snares, and been declared guiltless by a secret tribunal 
 appointed in 1800, to try her behind her back, without any one present on her part, 
 and composed of the political and personal friends of the Prince. 
 
 Wherefore, when it was asserted that during her residence on the continent, 
 whither she had by a continuance of the same persecution been at last driven, her 
 conduct had been watched and found incorrect, all men said, that if blame there 
 was, a far larger share of it fell on her royal husband than on herself. 15ut when 
 it was found that he, the wrong-doer, was resolved to vent upon his victim the con- 
 sequences of his own offences wheu it was known that he whose whole life 
 since his marriage, had been a violation of his marriage vows, was determined to 
 destroy his consort after deserting and ill-using her and when it was announced 
 that his design was, to obtain a release from the nuptial ties, which had never for 
 an hour held him fast, on the pretence of the party so deeply injured by his incon- 
 stancy and his oppressions having at length fallen into the snares set for her the 
 public indignation knew no bounds, and all the people with ono voice exclaimed 
 against a proceeding so indecently outraging every principle of humanity and of 
 justice. Whether the facts alleged were true or false, the people never gave them- 
 selves a moment's trouble to inquire; and if the whole case should be confessed or 
 should be proved, it was quite the same thing; he who had done the wrong had no 
 right to take advantage of it, and if every one tittle of the charges made, had liecn 
 admitted by the party accused, the peoplo were resolved to stand between her and 
 her persecutor's injustice.
 
 58 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 An attempt was made to hurry the House of Commons into the consideration of 
 the subject, before time could be given for that expression of feeling in the country, 
 which the King's friends were well aware must speedily become loud and general. 
 But the Queen's friends were not to be thrown off their guard. Messrs. Broug- 
 ham and Denman, her Attorney and Solicitor-general, were fully prepared for this 
 sudden movement. It was most signally discomfited. A delay of some days was 
 forced upon the government by the Queen's Attorney-general entering unexpectedly 
 at large into the whole case; and Mr. Canning, to his infinite honor, bore such testi- 
 mony to the virtues and accomplishments of the illustrious princess, whose honor, 
 whose station, and indeed whose life was assailed, that a division among the 
 ministers was plainly indicated. 
 
 The temper and disposition of the house on this memorable occasion, was 
 observed to be anxiously watched by the King's friends; and the Duke of Wel- 
 lington sat the whole night under the gallery an attentive listener, and with frequent 
 communications to and from those more immediately engaged in the conflict. All 
 men now felt deep regret that this illustrious person had only of late betaken him- 
 self to the pursuits of civil life; for his penetrating sagacity, as well as his 
 honorable feelings, would have been an ample security against suffering such a 
 course as the King seemed bent upon pursuing, had his Grace been in a position 
 to exercise his proper authority over his colleagues and his master, and to sway 
 their councils as he has since done upon the most important occasions. Nor would 
 the same security have been wanting for the country, had Lord Wellesley fortu- 
 nately been in his appropriate position, at the helm of affairs. No one was 
 calculated to have such influence over the royal mind; and no one would more 
 certainly have exerted it in the direction which the best interests of the country, as 
 well as the King's own honor, so plainly pointed out. But the counsels of inferior 
 men prevailed; or rather, the resistance of inferior minds only was opposed to the 
 vehemence of the royal will; and it was determined that a hill of pains and penal- 
 ties should he introduced with all the influence of the crown, for the purpose of 
 dissolving the marriage and degrading the Queen-consort from her exalted station. 
 The offence alleged against her, being adultery, would have *een high treason 
 had it been committed within the realm. There were doubts among lawyers 
 whether or not it could be so considered if committed abroad, and certainly the 
 whole proceeding was sufficiently encumbered with difficulties to make its authors 
 anxious that whatever provision loaded it with additional obstacles should be 
 avoided. Accordingly no question was made of higher penalties than degradation 
 and divorce. 
 
 It would be needless to enter into the details of this unparalleled and most dis- 
 
 fraceful affair. It is enough if we run over the heads merely of its history. The 
 ecided repugnance of the House of Commons to the whole proceeding, compelled 
 the ministers to defer the appointment of a select committee, for which they had 
 moved in both houses. Mr. Wilberforce, whose patriotism, matured wisdom, and 
 superiority to all factious views, pointed him out as the fit person to resist the 
 threatened mischief, and dictate the terms which should bind all parties, brought 
 forward a proposition for addressing the Queen, after the negotiation between the 
 Duke of Wellington and Lord Castlereagh on the King's part, Messrs. Brougham 
 and Denman on Her Majesty's, had failed; and the House having agreed to the 
 motion, he as mover, accompanied by Mr. Stuart Wortly,* the seconder, Mr. Bankes, 
 and Sir T. Acland, proceeded to wait upon her with the House's resolutions, declar- 
 ing its opinion that the Queen might, without any sacrifice of her honor, accede to the 
 King's proposal of leaving the country, upon full security being given of enjoying 
 her revenue under the sanction of parliament. Her Majesty received the deputa- 
 tion of the Commons with that great dignity of demeanor which was so habitual 
 to her upon proper occasions, and was altogether unmixed with haughtiness or 
 insolence; but she declined in decided, though kindly terms, acceding to a request 
 which must leave her conduct exposed to suspicion. "As a subject of the state," 
 she said " I shall bow with deference, and, if possible, without a murmur, to every 
 act of the sovereign authority. But as an accused and injured Queen, I owe to the 
 
 * Now Lord Wharncliffc.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 59 
 
 King, to myself, and to all my fellow-subjects, not to consent to tho sacrifice of 
 any essential privileges, or withdraw my appeal to those principles of puhlic 
 justice, which are alike the safeguard of the highest and the humblest individuals." 
 It now became apparent that the inquiry preparatory to the bill must proceed. 
 Her Miijestj' petitioned the House of Lords to be heard by her counsel against a 
 secret committee being appointed to examine her conduct in her absence; and the 
 counsel were at half an hour's notice heard, but in vain. It was on this occasion 
 that Mr. Denman, in allusion to the well-known adviser of the Milan Commission, 
 Sir John Leach, whose counsels, so pleasing to the King, were supposed to be 
 guided by the desire of supplanting Lord Eldon and obtaining the Great Seal, 
 made that memorable quotation from Shakspoare, which was so manifestly delight- 
 ful to Lord Eldon, and certainly as distasteful to Sir John. 
 
 Some busy and insinuating rogue, 
 
 Some cogging cozening knave, to get some office, 
 
 Hath devised this slander. 
 
 The lords then appointed a secret committee, to whom papers in a sealed green 
 bag were delivered. After examining these in secret, they reported that a Bill of 
 Degradation and Divorce should be brought in, which was accordingly done; and it 
 was read a first time on the 5th of July. After rejecting an application from the 
 Queen to be furnished with lists of the witnesses against her, the 17th of August 
 was fixed for proceeding with the case. 
 
 On that day this unexampled proceeding commenced a proceeding in which the 
 forms of the constitution were observed, while its spirit was outraged at every step 
 a proceeding over which the ferocious tyranny of Henry VIII presided, although 
 the customs of parliament were observed throughout, and which afforded a practical 
 proof, that influence may, with a little delay, effect in the nineteenth century 
 almost all that undisguised and unmitigated prerogative could accomplish in the 
 sixteenth. 
 
 The first movement of the Queen's counsel was to demur, as it were, to the bill, 
 and called upon the House to reject it upon the ground of justice and of all con- 
 stitutional principles, whether the statements in the preamble were true or false. 
 In this preliminary argument, Mr. Denman was universally allowed to have prin- 
 cipally distinguished himself; and his great display of eloquence raised high ex- 
 pectations of what might be accomplished by him during the subsequent stages of 
 the cause expectations which, however high, were surpassed by the performance. 
 Every effort, however, was for the present unavailing, either to stop the government 
 in its course, or animate and alarm the peers into a resistance on behalf of the con- 
 stitution and the country. All without perhaps one exception, both of the govern- 
 ment and of both Houses, abhorred the measure; and if they could have been sure 
 that throwing it out immediately, would not have occasioned a change of ministry, 
 assuredly the bill never would have remained one hour in existence. But then, as 
 in much later times, the great fear was of letting in the opposition; and Tories were 
 daily seen abandoning their whole principles, upon the pretence that they had no 
 other way of preventing what, to their eyes, seemed the most formidable of all 
 events exactly as in the present day we have seen Whigs giving up their most 
 sacred opinions one after another, and attaching not the weight of a feather to 
 retrenchment, and popular rights, and the progress of reform, and the rights of 
 colonies, and the maintenance of peace, and the extinction of Slavery, and the pre- 
 vention of the Slave Trade itself, when weighed in the balance against the one 
 evil of a change Which should let in their adversaries, and turn out their patrons 
 from the dispensation of court favor. 
 
 The preliminary objection, in the nature of a demurrer, being overruled, tho bill 
 proceeded; that is, the case against the Queen was opened, and witnesses WHO 
 examined to prove it, after tho Attorney-general had opened the charge in a long 
 speech of minute detail a course which was extremely ill considered by the advo- 
 cates of the bill, who could not ntall trust their foreign witnesses: for being guided 
 in their detailed statements wholly by the result of the Milan commission, the 
 manifest discrepancies between the answers which their questions showed that
 
 60 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 they expected to get, and those actually given, afforded constant occasion to their 
 adversaries to cast discredit upon the testimony. It ought to be mentioned, as one 
 of the manifold irregularities of this proceeding, that now for the first time mem- 
 bers of one house acted as counsel at the bar of the other, in a bill on which they 
 must, if it passed that other, themselves come to sit as judges. But the extreme 
 inconvenience of the Attorneys and Solicitors-general of both King and Queen 
 going out of Parliament during so many months as the case might last, suggested 
 the expediency of the House of Commons passing a resolution which permitted its 
 members to appear as counsel in this bill; and Mr. Williams and Dr. Lushington, 
 who were of counsel for her Majesty, availed themselves of this leave, as well as 
 Mr. Brougham and Mr. Denman. Mr. Sergeant Wilde was not then a member of 
 Parliament. 
 
 There is no occasion to characterise the evidence which was produced for the 
 bill, otherwise than as it has been since described, in colors which, though they 
 may be strong, are only so because they are so strong as to retain their likeness to 
 the original they represent. 
 
 "The Milan Commission proceeded under this superintendence; and as its labors 
 so were their fruits exactly what might have been expected. It is the first impres- 
 sion always arising from any work undertaken by English hands and paid for by 
 English money, that an inexhaustible fund is employed, and with boundless pro- 
 fusion; and a thirst of gold is straightway excited which no extravagance of libe- 
 rality can slake. The knowledge that a board was sitting to collect evidence 
 against the Queen, immediately gave such testimony a high value in the market of 
 Italian perjury; and happy was the individual who had ever been in her house or 
 admitted to her presence: his fortune was counted to be made. Nor were they 
 who had viewed her mansion, or had only known the arrangements of her villa, 
 without hopes of sharing in the golden prize. To have seen her pass, and noted 
 who attended her person, was a piece of good luck. In short, nothing, however 
 remotely connected with herself, or her family, or her residence, or her habits, was 
 without its value among a poor, a sanguine, and an imaginative people. It is cer- 
 tain that no more ready way of proving a case, like the charge of criminal inter- 
 course, can be found, than to have it first broadly asserted for a fact; because this 
 being once believed, every motion, gesture, and look is at once taken as proof of the 
 accusation, and the two most innocent of human beings may be overwhelmed with 
 a mass of circumstances, almost all of which, as well as the inferences drawn 
 from them, are really believed to be true by those who recount or record them. As 
 the treachery of servants was the portion of this testimony which bore the highest 
 value, that, of course, was not difficult to procure; and the accusers soon possessed 
 what, in such a case, may most truly be said to be accusatori maxime optandum 
 not indeed confitentes reos, but the man-servant of the one, and the maid-servant of 
 the other supposed paramour. Nor can we look back upon these scenes without 
 some little wonder how they should not have added even the confiteniem reum; for 
 surely in a country so fertile of intriguing men and abandoned women where false 
 oaths, too, grow natural!}*, or with only the culture of a gross ignorance and a 
 superstitious faith it might have been easy, we should imagine, to find some 
 youth, like Smeatton in the original Harry the Eighth's time, ready to make his 
 fortune, both in money and female favors, by pretending to have enjoyed the affec- 
 tions of one whose good nature and easy manners made the approach to her person 
 no difficult matter at any time. This defect in the case can only be accounted for 
 by supposing that the production of such a witness before the English public might 
 have appeared somewhat perilous, both to himself and to the cause he was brought 
 to prop with his perjuries. Accordingly, recourse was had to spies, who watched 
 all the parties did, and when they could not find a circumstance, would make one; 
 men who chronicled the dinners and the suppers that were eaten, the walks and the 
 sails that were enjoyed, the arrangements of rooms and the position of bowers, and 
 who, never doubting that these were the occasions and the scenes of endearment 
 and of enjoyment, pretended to have witnessed the one, in order that the other 
 might be supposed; but with that inattention to particulars which Providence has 
 appointed as the snare for the false witness, and the safeguard of innocence, pre- 
 tended to have seen in such directions as would have required the rays of light to
 
 INTRODUCTION. 61 
 
 move not straightforward, but round about. Couriers that pried into carriages where 
 the travellers were, asleep at gray day-light, or saw in the dusk of dewy eve what 
 their own fancy pictured sailors who believed that all persons could gratify their 
 animal appetites on the public deck, where themselves had so often played the 
 beast's part lying waiting-women, capable of repaying the kindness and charity 
 that had laid the foundation of their fortune, with the treachery that could rear it to 
 the height of^their sordid desires chambermaids, the refuse of the streets, and the 
 common food of wayfaring licentiousness, whose foul fancy could devour every 
 mark that beds might but did not, present to their practised eye lechers of either 
 sex, who would fain have gloated over the realities of what their liquorish imagina- 
 tion alone bodied forth pimps of hideous aspect, whose prurient glance could 
 penetrate through the keyhole of rooms where the rat shared with the bug the 
 silence of the deserted place these were the performers whose exploits the com- 
 missioners chronicled, whose narratives they collected, and whose exhibition upon 
 the great stage of the first tribunal of all the earth, they sedulously and zealously 
 prepared by frequent rehearsal. Yet with all these helps to success with the un- 
 limited supply of fancy and of falsehood which the character of the people furnished 
 with the very body-servants of the parties hired by their wages, if not bought 
 with a price such an array could only be produced, as the whole world pronounced 
 insufficient to prove any case, and as even the most prejudiced of assemblies in the 
 accuser's favor turned from with disgust." Edinburgh lleview, vol. Ixvii. 41 13. 
 
 On the 9th of September an adjournment was resolved on of about three weeks, 
 and on the 3d of October the House again met, when the counsel for the Queen 
 were heard, and witnesses called on her part. The following speech is Mr. Broug- 
 ham's defence of her Majesty, which he opened on the first day after the adjourn- 
 ment, and finished on the next. Mr. Uenman's summing up of the evidence, and 
 application of it to answer the charges, was a magnificent effort of genius. But 
 there is no possibility of giving more than the justly celebrated peroration, and one 
 or two other passages. The last sentence of all was the subject of much misre- 
 presentation at the time, and has been occasionally since. Nor can it be denied 
 that the want of a few words, especially in a spoken composition on such a subject, 
 rendered this unavoidable. Whoever attentively considers the structure of the 
 sentence, and weighs the force of the words, can have no doubt of the sense; but 
 it is not safe to throw so much upon a single particle, as was thus cast upon the 
 word " even;" and a sentence was wanting to bring home the meaning, by pointing 
 the hearer's attention to the contrast exhibited by our Savior towards convicted 
 guilt, and human injustice towards proved innocence. 
 
 The proceedings of 1820, though they ended in the signal discomfiture of the 
 Queen's enemies, by no means put an end to their persecutions. Although declared 
 innocent by the fate of the bill, which was withdrawn on the 10th of November, 
 after the second reading had been carried by only nine votes, and when it became 
 manifest that it must he Hung out on the next stage, the usual insertion of her 
 Majesty's name in the liturgy was still withheld, and a motion on the subject sug- 
 gested by Sir Charles Wetherel, a determined, but most honest and consistent, as 
 well as highly-gifted member of the Tory party, was rejected in the House of Com- 
 mons. In the following summer, the coronation of George IV was proceeded with, 
 and of course the Queen claimed to be crowned, as all her royal predecessors had 
 been; but this, too, was peremptorily refused, and the annoyance occasioned by 
 these vexatious proceedings, coining after so long a life of ill-treatment, is generally 
 believed to have hastened her end. The mournful inscription which she desired to 
 have plaord upon her coflin is well known " Caroline of Brunswick, the murdered 
 Queen of Knoland." 
 
 The last of the following speeches relates to the subject of the coronation, her 
 Majesty's claim having been referred to the Privy Council, which heard tlio argu- 
 ment at a very crowded meeting, attended by the Attorney and Solicitor-general 
 for the King, as well as those for the Queen, the former law-officers, however, 
 acting as assessors to the board, the latter appearing at the bar. The Karl of 
 Harrowby, as Lord President, was in the chair; but besides many lay lords, he 
 was assisted by the Lord Chancellor, the Chief Justices, and other heads of the 
 law who belonged to the Privy Cumu-il. 
 VOL. I.
 
 SPEECH 
 
 CASE OF QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIPS: The time is now come when I 
 feel that I shall truly stand in need of all your indulgence. It is not 
 merely the august presence of this assembly which embarrasses me, 
 for I have oftentimes had experience of its condescension nor the 
 novelty of this proceeding that perplexes me, for the mind gradually 
 gets reconciled to the strangest things nor the magnitude of this cause 
 that oppresses me, for I am borne up and cheered by that conviction 
 of its justice, which I share with all mankind; but, my lords, it is the 
 very force of that conviction, the knowledge that it operates univer- 
 sally, the feeling that it operates rightly, which now dismays me with 
 the apprehension, that my unworthy mode of handling it, may, for the 
 first time, injure it; and, while others have trembled for a guilty client, 
 or been anxious in a doubtful case, or crippled with a consciousness of 
 some hidden weakness, or chilled by the influence, or dismayed by 
 the hostility, of public opinion, I, knowing that here is no guiltiness to 
 conceal, nor anything, save the resources of perjury, to dread, am 
 haunted with the apprehension that my feeble discharge of this duty 
 may for the first time cast that cause into doubt, and may turn against 
 me for condemnation those millions of your lordships' countrymen 
 whose jealous eyes are now watching us, and who will not fail to 
 impute it to me, if your lordships should reverse the judgment which 
 the case for the charge has extorted from them. And I feel, my lords, 
 under such a weight so troubled, that I can hardly at this moment, 
 with all the reflection which the indulgence of your lordships has 
 accorded to me, compose my spirits to the discharge of my professional 
 duty, under the pressure of that grave responsibility which accompa- 
 nies it. It is no light addition to this feeling, that I foresee, though 
 happily at some distance, that before these proceedings close, it may 
 be my unexampled lot to discharge a duty, in which the loyalty of 
 a good subject may, among the ignorant, among the thoughtless 
 certainly not with your lordships for a moment suffer an impeach- 
 ment. 
 
 My lords, the Princess Caroline of Brunswick arrived in this country 
 in the year 1795 the niece of our sovereign, the intended consort of
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 63 
 
 his heir-apparent, and herself not a very remote heir to the crown of 
 these realms. But I now go back to that period, only for the purpose 
 of passing over all the interval which elapsed between her arrival 
 then and her departure in 1814. I rejoice that, for the present at 
 least, the most faithful discharge of my duty permits me to draw this 
 veil; but I cannot do so without pausing for an instant, to guard 
 myself against a misrepresentation to which I know this cause may 
 not unnaturally be exposed, and to assure your lordships most solemnly, 
 that if I did not think that the cause of the Queen, as attempted to 
 be established by the evidence against her, not only does not require 
 recrimination at present not only imposes no duty of even uttering one 
 whisper, whether by way of attack, or by way of insinuation, against 
 the conduct of her illustrious husband; but that it rather prescribes to 
 me, for the present, silence upon this great and painful head of the 
 case I solemnly assure your lordships, that but for this conviction, 
 my lips on that branch would NOT be closed; for, in discretionally aban- 
 doning the exercise of the power which I feel I have, in postponing 
 for the present the statement of that case of which I am possessed, I 
 feel confident that I am waiving a right which I possess, and abstain- 
 ing from the use of materials which are mine. And let it not be 
 thought, my lords, that if either now I did conceive, or if hereafter I 
 should so far be disappointed in my expectation that the case against 
 me will fail, as to feel it necessary to exercise that right let no man 
 vainly suppose, that not only I, but that any, the youngest member 
 of the profession would hesitate one moment in the fearless discharge 
 of his paramount duty. I once before took leave to remind your 
 lordships which was unnecessary, but there are many whom it may 
 be needful to remind that an advocate, by the sacred duty which he 
 owes his client, knows, in the discharge of that office, but one person 
 in the world, THAT CLIENT AND NONE OTIIEK. To save that client by 
 all expedient means to protect that client at all hazards and costs to 
 all others, and among others to himself is the highest and most 
 unquestioned of his duties; and he must not regard the alarm the 
 suffering the torment the destruction which he may bring upon 
 any other. Nay, separating even the duties of a patriot from those 
 of an advocate, and casting them, if need be, to the wind, he must go 
 on reckless of the consequences, if his fate it should unhappily be, to 
 involve his country in confusion for his client's protection! 
 
 But, rny lords, I am not reduced to this painful necessity. I feel 
 that if I were to touch this branch of the case now, until any event 
 shall afterwards show that unhappily I am deceiving myself I feel 
 that if I were now to approach the great subject of recrimination, I 
 should seem to give up the higher ground of innocence on which I 
 rest my cause; I should seem to be justifying when I plead Not Guilty; 
 I should seem to argue in extenuation and in palliation of offences, 
 or levities, or improprieties, the least and the lightest of which I stand 
 here utterly to deny. For it is false, as has been said it is foul and 
 false as those have dared to say, who, pretending to discharge, the 
 higher duties to God, have shown, that they know not the first ol their
 
 64 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 duties to their fellow-creatures it is foul, and false, and scandalous 
 in those who have said (and they know that it is so who have dared 
 to say), that there are improprieties admitted in the conduct of the 
 Queen. I deny that the admission has been made. I contend that 
 the evidence does not prove them. I will show you that the evidence 
 disproves them. One admission, doubtless, I do make; and let my 
 learned friends who are of counsel for the Bill take all the benefit of 
 it, for it is all that they have proved by their evidence. I grant that 
 her Majasty left this country and went to reside in Italy. I grant that 
 her society was chiefly foreign. I grant that it was an inferior society 
 to that which she once enlightened and graced with her presence in 
 this country. I admit, my lords, that while here, and while happy 
 in the protection not perhaps of her own family, after the fatal event 
 which deprived it of its head; but while enjoying the society of your 
 lordships and the families of your lordships I grant that the Queen 
 moved in a more choice, in perhaps a more dignified society, than she 
 afterwards adorned in Italy. And the charge against her is, that she 
 has associated with Italians, instead of her own countrymen and 
 countrywomen; and, that instead of the peeresses of England, she 
 has sometimes lived with Italian nobility, and sometimes with persons 
 of the commonalty of that country. But, who are they that bring 
 this charge, and above all, before whom do they urge it? Others may 
 accuse her others may blame her for going abroad others may tell 
 tales of the consequences of living among Italians, and of not associ- 
 ating with the women of her country, or of her adopted country: but it 
 is not your lordships that have any right to say so. It is not yon, my 
 lords, that can fling this stone at Her Majesty. You are the last persons 
 in the world you, who now presume to judge her, are the last persons 
 in the world so to charge her; for you are the witnesses whom she must 
 call to vindicate her from that charge. You are the last persons who 
 can so charge her; for you, being her witnesses, have been also the insti- 
 gators of that only admitted crime. While she was here, she courteously 
 opened the doors of her palace to the families of your lordships. She 
 graciously condescended to mix herself in the habits of most familiar 
 life, with those virtuous and distinguished persons. She condescended 
 to court your society, and, as long as it suited purposes not of hers as 
 long as it was subservient to views not of her own as long as it served 
 interests in which she had no concern she did not court that society 
 in vain. But when changes took place when other views arose 
 when that power was to be retained which she had been made the 
 instrument of grasping when that lust of power and place was to 
 be continued its gratification, to the first gratification of winch she had 
 been made the victim then her doors were opened in vain; then 
 that society of the peeresses of England was withholden from her; 
 then she was reduced to the alternative, humiliating indeed, for I say 
 that her condescension to you and yours was no humiliation. She 
 was only lowering herself, by overlooking the distinctions of rank to 
 enjoy the first society in the world but then it pleased you to reduce 
 her to what was really humiliation either to acknowledge that you
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 65 
 
 had deserted her to seek the company of those who now made it a 
 favor which she saw they unwillingly granted, or to leave the country 
 and have recourse to other society inferior to yours. I say, then, my 
 lords, that this is not the place where I must be told it is not in the 
 presence of your lordships I must expect to hear any one lift his voice 
 to complain that the Princess of Wales went to reside in Italy, and 
 associated with those whose society she neither ought to have chosen, 
 nor would have chosen certainly would not have chosen, perhaps 
 ought not to have chosen had she been in other and happier cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 In the midst of this, and of so much suffering as to an ingenious 
 mind such conduct could not fail to cause, she still had one resource, 
 and which, for a space, was allowed to remain to her I need hardly 
 say I mean the comfort of knowing that she still possessed the undi- 
 minished attachment and grateful respect of her justly respected and 
 deeply lamented daughter. An event now took place which, of all 
 others, most excites the feelings of a parent: that daughter was about 
 to form a union upon which the happiness upon which alas! the 
 Queen knew too well how much the happiness, or the misery, of her 
 future life must depend. No announcement was made to her Majesty 
 of the projected alliance. All England occupied with the subject 
 Europe looking on with an interest which it certainly had in so great 
 an event England had it announced to her; Europe had it announc- 
 ed to her each petty German prince had it announced to him; but 
 the one person to whom no notice of it was given, was the mother 
 of the bride who was to be espoused; and all that she had done then 
 to deserve this treatment was, with respect to one of the illustrious 
 parties, that she had been proved, by his evidence against her, to be 
 not guilty of the charge he launched at her behind her back; and, 
 with respect to his servants, that they had formerly used her as the 
 tool by which their ambition was to be gratified. The marriage itself 
 was consummated. Still, no notice was communicated to the Queen. 
 She heard it accidentally by a courier who was going to announce the 
 intelligence to the Pope, that ancient, intimate, much-valued ally of 
 the Protestant Crown of these realms, and with whose close friendship 
 the title of the Brunswicks to our crown is so interwoven. A pros- 
 pect grateful to the whole nation, interesting to all Europe, was now 
 afforded, that the marriage would be a fruitful source of stability to 
 the royal family of these realms. The whole of that period, painfully 
 interesting to a parent as well as to a husband, was passed without 
 the slightest communication; arid if the Princess Charlotte's own feel- 
 ings had prompted her to open one, she was in a state of anxiety 
 of mind and of delicacy of frame, in consequence of that her first 
 pregnancy, which made it dangerous to have maintained a struggle 
 between power and authority on the one hand, and affection and duty 
 on the other. An event most fatal followed which plunged the whole 
 of England into grief; one in which all our foreign neighbors sympa- 
 thised, and while, with a due regard to the feelings of those fon-iirn 
 allies, and even of strange powers and princes with whom we had
 
 66 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 no alliance, that event was speedily communicated by particular mes- 
 sengers to each, the person in all the world who had the deepest 
 interest in the event the person whose feelings, above those of all 
 the rest of mankind, were most overwhelmed and stunned by it 
 was left to be stunned and overwhelmed by it accidentally; as she 
 had, by accident, heard of the marriage. Bat if she' had not heard 
 of the dreadful event by accident, she would, ere long have felt it; 
 for the decease of the Princess Charlotte was communicated to her 
 mother, by the issuing of the Milan Commission and the commence- 
 ment of the proceedings for the third time against her character and 
 her life. 
 
 See, my lords, the unhappy fate of this illustrious woman! It has 
 been her lot always to lose her surest stay, her best protector, when 
 the dangers most thickened around her; and, by a coincidence almost 
 miraculous, there has hardly been one of her defenders withdrawn 
 from her, that his loss has not been the signal for an attack upon 
 her existence. Mr. Pitt was her earliest defender and friend in this 
 country. He died in 1806; and, but a few week safterwards, the first 
 inquiry into the conduct of Her Royal Highness began. He left her a 
 legacy to Mr. Percival, her firm, dauntless, and most able advocate. 
 And, no sooner had the hand of an assassin laid Mr. Percival low, than 
 she felt the calamity of his death, in the renewal of the attacks, which 
 his gallantry, his skill, and his invariable constancy had discomfitted. 
 Mr. Whitbread then undertook her defence; and, when that catastro- 
 phe happened, which all good men lament without any distinction 
 of party or sect, again commenced the distant growling of the storm; 
 for it then, happily, was never allowed to approach her, because her 
 daughter stood her friend, and some there were who worshipped the 
 rising sun. But, when she lost that amiable and beloved child, all 
 which might have been expected here all which might have been 
 dreaded by her if she had not been innocent all she did dread 
 because, who, innocent or guilty, loves persecution? who delights in 
 trial, even when character and honor are safe? all was at once 
 allowed to burst upon her head; and the operations began with the 
 Milan Commission. And, as if there were no possibility of the Queen 
 losing a protector without some most important scene against her 
 being played in this too real drama, the day which saw the venera- 
 ble remains of our revered sovereign consigned to the tomb of that 
 sovereign who, from the first outset of the Princess in English life, 
 had been her constant and steady defender that same sun ushered 
 the ringleader of the band of perjured witnesses into the palace of his 
 illustrious successor! Why do I mention these things! Not for the 
 sake of making so trite a remark, as that trading politicians are sel- 
 fish that spite is twin-brother to ingratitude that nothing will bind 
 base natures that favors conferred, and the duty of gratitude neglect- 
 ed, only make those natures the more spiteful and malignant. My 
 lords, the topic would be trite and general, and I should be ashamed 
 to trouble you with it; but I say this, in order to express once more 
 my deep sense of the un worthiness with which I now succeed such
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 67 
 
 powerful defenders, and my alarm lest my exertions should fail to do 
 what theirs must have accomplished had they survived. 
 
 My lords, I pray your attention for a few moments, to what all this 
 has resulted in. It has ended in the getting up of a story, to the general 
 features of which I am now first about to direct the attention of your 
 lordships. But I must begin by praying you to recollect what the 
 evidence has not only not proved, but is very likely to have discharged 
 from the memory of your lordships I mean the opening of my 
 learned friend, the Attorney-general. Now, he shall himself describe, 
 in his own words, the plan and the construction of that opening state- 
 ment. It is most material for your lordships to direct your attention 
 to this; because much of the argument rests on this comparative view. 
 He did not, then, make a general speech, without book, without di- 
 rection or instruction; but his speech was the spoken evidence; it 
 was the transcript of that which he had before him; and the way in 
 which that transcript was prepared, I leave your lordships to conjec- 
 ture, even uninformed to a certain degree as you now must needs be. 
 " I will," said my learned friend and every one who heard him make 
 the promise, and who knows his strictly honorable nature, must have 
 expected its exact fulfilment "I will most carefully state nothing 
 which I do not, in my conscience, believe I shall be able to substan- 
 tiate in proof; but I will also withhold nothing, upon which I have 
 that conviction." I believed the Attorney-general when I heard him 
 promise. I knew that he spoke from his conscience; and now that I see 
 he has failed in the fulfilment, I equally well know that there is but 
 one cause for the failure that he told you what he had in his brief, 
 and what had found its way into his brief from the mouths of the 
 witnesses. He could get it in no other way but that. The witnesses 
 who had told falsehoods before in private, were scared from repeating 
 them here, before your lordships. Now, I will give your lordships 
 one or two specimens of this; because I think these samples will 
 enable you to form a pretty accurate estimate, not only of the value 
 of that evidence, where it comes not up to rny learned friend's open- 
 ing, but also to form a pretty good guess of the manner in which that 
 part of it which did succeed was prepared for the purpose. I will 
 merely take one or two of the leading witnesses, and compare one 
 or two of the matters which my learned friend opened, and will not 
 tire you with the manner in which they told you the story. 
 
 First, my learned friend said, that the evidence of the Queen's 
 improper conduct would come down almost "to the time at 
 which I have now the honor of addressing your lordships." I am 
 quoting the words of my learned friend, from the short-hand writer's 
 notes. In fuct, by the Evidence, ihsit " a/most" means up to the 
 present time, all but three years; that is to say, all but a space of 
 time exactly equal to that space of time over which the other parts 
 of the evidence extend. At Naples, where the scene is laid which 
 is first so sedulously brought before your lordships, as if the first con- 
 nection between the two parties began upon that occasion as if that 
 were the night when the guilty intentions, which they long had been
 
 68 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 harboring, but for want of opportunity had not been able to fulfil, 
 were at length gratified at Naples, I pray your lordships to attend 
 to the manner in which he opened this first and most important 
 of his whole case, and which if it fails, that failure must affect the 
 statement of circumstances, not only in this part of the evidence, but 
 in all the subsequent stages of it. How does my learned friend open 
 that part of his case? " I shall show you," says he, " that there are 
 clear, decisive marks of two persons having slept in the bed, the 
 night that the Queen came home; the second night she was at Naples, 
 she returned early from the opera; she went to her own room, from 
 thence she repaired to Bergami's room, where Bergami himself was; 
 the next day she was not visible till an unusually late hour, and was 
 inaccessible to the nobility of Naples." Every one of these asser- 
 tions, rising one above another in succession and importance, but 
 even the lowest of them of great moment to the case against her 
 Majesty every one of them not only is false, but is negatived by 
 the witness produced to support them. Demont gives no "decisive 
 marks," she gives a doubtful and hesitating story. With one ex- 
 ception, there is nothing specific, even in what she swears; and with 
 that I shall afterwards come to deal. But she denies that she knew 
 where the Queen went when she first left her own bed-room. She 
 denies that she knew where Bergami was at the time. She says 
 affirmatively that the next morning the Queen was up and alert by 
 the usual time. Not one tittle of evidence does she give, or any body 
 else, of her having refused access to any one person who called: nor 
 is any evidence given (to make the whole more complete) that any 
 body called that morning at all. 
 
 Then come we to that which my learned friend opened with more 
 than even his wonted precision. We know that all the rest was from 
 his instructions. It could be from no other source. He had never 
 been in Italy. Neither he nor my learned friend, the Solicitor-gene- 
 ral, have given us any idea of their knowing what sort of country it 
 is; that they know any thing of a masquerade; that they know any 
 thing of a cassino. My learned friend has represented as if the 
 being black-balled at that cassino were ruin to a person's character; 
 forgetting who may be the members of the society at that cassino; that 
 there may be a Colonel Brown; that it is held at the very place where 
 the Milan Commission was held. "But," says my learned friend, 
 the Solicitor-general, " who ever heard of the wife of a royal prince 
 of this country going disguised to a masquerade?" Who would 
 have thought that, being disguised, and on her way to a masquerade, 
 she did not go in her own state coach, with her livery servants, with 
 a coachman bedizened, with lacqueys plastered, with all the "pomp, 
 pride, and circumstance" of a court or a birth-day, but that she went 
 in a common hired carriage, without the royal arms, without splendor 
 or garb, coming out at the back door, instead of issuing out at the 
 front door, with all the world spectators? Nay, I only wonder that 
 my learned friend did not state, as an enormity unheard of and inex- 
 plicable, that she went to a masquerade in a domino and with a false
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 69 
 
 face! My lords, it was not, therefore, from their own personal 
 observation, certainly not from having been present at these royal 
 recreations of Murat's conrt, that my learned friends obtained their 
 knowledge of this cause; they have it from Detnont or Mujoochi, the 
 witnesses who have been examined again and again; and who have 
 again and again told the same story; but which story being in part 
 founded in fact, they now recollect only the portion that is true, and 
 forget what is untrue. 
 
 "Then," says my learned friend, in this instance which I am now 
 going to state, leaving us to our general suspicions as to where he 
 got his knowledge upon the other circumstances, and coming to some- 
 thing more specific " I am instructed to state," and in another instance, 
 "the witness says" so and so, showing he was reading the witness's 
 deposition. " I am instructed to state, that the dress which the Prin- 
 cess had assumed, or rather the want of it in part, was extremely 
 indecent and disgusting;" and lie adds afterwards, in commenting 
 upon it, that it was of the "most indecent description;" so that she 
 was, on account of that indecency, on account of the disgusting 
 nature of it, by those who actually saw it, hooted from the public 
 theatre. Your lordships will recollect what it came to that the 
 Princess was there in a dress that was exceedingly ugly the maid 
 Demont said, in a " very ugly" dress; and that was all my learned 
 friend could get her now to assert that it was without form and 
 ugly; masques came about her and she, unknown in her own masque, 
 for strange as it may appear to my learned friend, a personal a 
 masquerade endeavors to be disguised was attacked from joke or from 
 spite oftener from joke than from spite; her own dress being of that 
 ugly description for what reason is left to this moment unexplained. 
 
 My lords, I should fatigue your lordships if I were to go over other 
 instances I shall only mention that at Messina. Voices are said to 
 have been heard. The Attorney-general opened, that at Messina he 
 should prove the Princess and Bergami to have been locked up in 
 the same room, and to have been heard speaking together. That is 
 now reduced, by the evidence, to certain voices being heard, the 
 witness cannot say whose. At Savona, where my learned friend 
 gives you, as he generally does in his speech, the very day of the 
 month, the 12th of April, he stated that the only access to the Prin- 
 cess's room was through Bergarni's, where there was no bed, but that 
 in the Princess's room there was a large bed. The witness proved 
 only one of those particulars out of three. 
 
 Passing over a variety of particulars, I shall give only one or two 
 instances from Majoochi's and Sacchi's evidence. " The Princess 
 remained in Bcrgami's room a very considerable time," the night that 
 Majoochi swore she went into his room, " and there the witness heard 
 them kissing each other," says the Attorney-general. Majoochi says, 
 she remained there one of the times ten minutes, the other fifteen; and 
 that he only heard a whispering. Now, as to Sacchi. The story as 
 told by my learned friend, from the brief in his hand, and which 
 therefore Sacchi must have told before at Milan, is, that a courier one
 
 70 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 night returned from Milan, that is, that he, Sacchi, returned as a cou- 
 rier from Milan, for it was he whom he meant that finding Bergami 
 out of his own room, he looked about and saw him come out of the 
 Queen's room undressed that all the family were in bed that he 
 observed him that he spoke to him and that Bergami explained it 
 by saying he had gone, hearing his child cry, to see what was the 
 matter, and desired him not to mention any thing about it. Sacchi 
 negatives this, as far as a man speaking to so unusual a circumstance, 
 which, if it had happened, must have forcibly impressed his recollec- 
 tion, can do so. He denies it as strongly as a man can, by denying 
 all recollection of any such particulars, although not for want of 
 examination; for my learned friend, the Solicitor-general, questions'him 
 over and over again, and he cannot get him to come within a mile of 
 such a fact. 
 
 Then come we to the disgraceful scenes, as the Attorney-general 
 describes them, at the Barona, which he said and if they had been 
 as they were represented to him, 1 doubt not he used a very fair ex- 
 pression he did not tell us what they were, but " they were so dis- 
 graceful, that it rather made that house deserve the name of a brothel, 
 than of a palace, or a place fit for the reception of Her Majesty, or 
 any person of the least virtue or delicacy." Here there is a most 
 entire failure of proof from all the witnesses. 
 
 Then we are told that at Naples the attendants were shocked and 
 surprised by the conduct of the Queen that in Sicily no doubt was 
 entertained by them, from what they saw of the familiarities between 
 the parties, that a criminal intercourse was going on there. Not one 
 of those attendants describes that effect to have been produced upon 
 their minds by what they saw. I shall afterwards come to what they 
 did see; but they do not tell you this, though frequently urged and 
 kindly prompted to do it. Then, as to the visiting of the nobility 
 that the Queen's society was given up by the ladies of rank of her 
 own country, from the moment she left this country that they all 
 fell away in short, that she was treated abroad, I know not from 
 what motive, with something of the same abandonment with which 
 she was treated in this country I well know from what motive. 
 All this is disproved by the evidence. How came my learned friend 
 to forget the fact of that most respectable woman, Lady Charlotte 
 Lindsay, joining her at Naples, after her conduct had been obser- 
 ved by all the servants; with which servants Lady Charlotte 
 Lindsay's waiting woman naturally lived on terms of intimacy, and 
 between which servants and her, I have no idea that any thing of that 
 grave-like secrecy existed which each of them has represented to 
 have existed between themselves up to the time they came to the 
 Cotton Garden depot, and up to the moment that they conveyed from 
 that depot to your lordships' bar, the resources of their perjury. Lady 
 Charlotte Lindsay, Lord and Lady Glenbervie, Mrs. Falconet, and 
 others, had no doubt some intercourse with those Neapolitanjservants, 
 either directly or through their own attendants, all of whom are rep- 
 resented as having been perfectly astounded with the impropriety,
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 71 
 
 nay, the indecency of the conduct of their royal mistress; and yet 
 those noble and virtuous persons are proved to have joined her, some 
 at Naples some at Rome some at Leghorn, and to have associated with 
 her, in spite of all his open and avowed and ostentatious indecorum. 
 
 But, even to a much later period, and in higher quarters, the 
 Queen's company has been proved, by my learned friend's case, not 
 to have been treated abroad with the neglect which it experienced 
 here. She has been, in the first place, courteously received, even after 
 her return from the long voyage, by the legitimate sovereign prince of 
 Baden, a prince with a very legitimate origin, though with a some- 
 what revolutionary accession to his territory. Equally well received 
 was she by the still more legitimate Bourbons at Palermo; but court- 
 ed was her society by the legitimate Stuarts of Sardinia, the heirs 
 legitimate, as contra-distinguished from the heirs of liberty and of 
 right, to the throne of this realm the illegitimate and ousted heirs 
 I call them; but the true legitimates of the world, as some are dis- 
 posed to term them, who do not hold that allegiance, at least who 
 disguise that allegiance to the house of Brunswick, which, as good 
 subjects, we all cherish. Nay, even a prince who, I doubt not, will 
 rank in point of antiquity and family even higher than the legitimate 
 Bourbons and legitimate Stuarts I mean his highness the Dey of 
 Tunis, the paragon of Moorish legitimacy received her Majesty as 
 if she was respected by all his lighter-colored brethren in the other 
 parts of the globe. And she was also received in the same respectful 
 manner by the representative of the King at Constantinople. So that 
 wherever she has gone, she has met with respect from all ranks, and 
 has associated with the only persons of authority and note whom she 
 could have had as her vindicators. She was received by all those per- 
 sons of authority and note, not only not as my learned friend expected 
 to prove, but in the very reverse manner, and as from the evidence 
 I have now described her reception and her treatment. 
 
 Suffer me now, my lords, to solicit your indulgence, while I look a 
 little more narrowly into the case which was thus opened, and thus 
 partly not proved, partly disproved, by the Attorney-general. The 
 first remark which must strike any one who attends to this discussion 
 is one which pervades the whole case, and is of no small importance. 
 Is it not remarkable, that such a case, possessed as they are of such 
 witnesses, should have been left so lame and short as they must admit 
 it to be left, when contrasted with their opening? Was ever a cause of 
 criminal conversation brought into court under such favorable auspi- 
 ces? Who are your witnesses? The very two who, of all men and 
 womankind, must know most of this oflence, not only if it were in 
 the daily course of being committed, but if committed at all I mean, 
 the body servants of the two parties, the valet of the man, and the 
 lady's own waiting maid. Why, in common cases, these are the very 
 witnesses the counsel are panting to have and to bring into court. 
 From tho form of the action, they can hardly ever venture to bring 
 the man's servant; but if they can get hold of one by good fortune, 
 they consider their case must be proved; and then the only question
 
 72 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 comes to be as to mitigation of damages, for as to the fact, no defen- 
 dant would any longer hold out and resist. And if you believe any 
 part of their case, it was not from over caution of the parties; it was 
 not from any great restraint they impose on themselves; it was not 
 that knowing they were watched, they took care to give the world 
 nothing to see; because, if you believe the evidence, they had flung 
 off all regard to decorum, all trammels of restraint, all ordinary pru- 
 dence, and had given up the reins to this guilty passion, as if they 
 were still in the hey-day of youthful blood, and as if they were justified 
 by those ties which render its indulgence a virtue rather than a crime. 
 Yet, with all this want of caution, all these exhibitions of want of 
 circumspection, the man's serving man, and the lady's waiting woman 
 have not been able to prove more than these meagre facts, which, it 
 is pretended, make out the charge. When I said, however, there was 
 no caution or circumspection, I mis-stated the case. If you believe the 
 evidence and it is the great circumstance of improbability to which 
 I solicit your attention if you believe the evidence, there was every 
 caution used by the parties themselves, to insure discovery, which the 
 wishes and ingenuity of their most malignant adversary could have 
 devised to work their ruin and promote his own designs. Observe 
 how every part of the case is subject to this remark; and then I leave 
 to your lordships confidently the inference that must arise from the 
 observation. You will even find, that just in proportion as the dif- 
 ferent acts alleged are of a doubtful, or of a suspicious, or of an atro- 
 cious nature, in exactly the same proportion do the parties take especial 
 care that there shall be good witnesses, and many of them, in order 
 to prove it. It would be a horrible case, if such features did not 
 belong to it; but such features we have here abundantly; and if the 
 witnesses are to be believed, no mortal ever acted as the Queen is 
 represented to have done. Walking arm in arm is a most light thing; 
 it seldom takes place except in the presence of witnesses, and of those 
 some speak most accurately respecting it; but sitting together in an 
 attitude of familiar proximity, which is somewhat less equivocal, is 
 proved by several witnesses; and those who slate it to have been done 
 by the aid of placing the arms round the neck, or behind the back, 
 and which accordingly raises it a step higher the witnesses show 
 you that this happened when the doors were open, in the height of 
 the sun, in a villa where hundreds of persons were walking, and 
 when the house and the grounds were filled with common workmen. 
 Several salutes were given; and, as this stands still higher in the scale, 
 it appears that never was a kiss to pass between these lovers without 
 especial pains being taken that a third person should be by to tell the 
 story to those who did not see the deed done. One witness is out of 
 the room while Bergami is about to take his departure on a journey 
 from the Queen, while in Sicily. They wait until he comes in, and 
 then they kiss. When at Terracina, Bergami is going to land; the 
 whole party are on deck; the Princess and Bergami retire to a cabin; 
 but they patiently wait till Majoochi enters, and then the act is per- 
 petrated. Sitting on a gun or near the mast of the ship, on the knees
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 73 
 
 of the paramour, is an act still higher in the scale of licentiousness. 
 It is only proved scantily by one witness; but of that hereafter. Care 
 is taken that it should be perpetrated before eleven persons. But 
 sitting upon a gun with the arms entwined, is such an act as leaves 
 nothing to the imagination, except, the granting of the last favor the 
 full accomplishment of the purposes of desire this must be done in 
 the presence of all the crew, of all the servants, and all the compa- 
 nions, both by day and in the evening. The parties might be alone 
 at night then, of course, it is not done; but at all other times it is 
 done before all the passengers and all the crew. 
 
 But the case is not left here. As your lordships might easily sup- 
 pose, with persons so wary against themselves such firm and useful 
 allies of their accusers such implacable enemies to themselves 
 indisputable proofs of the case against them are not wanting to prove 
 the last favor in the presence of good witnesses; and accordingly, 
 sleeping together is not only said to have taken place habitually, 
 nightly in the presence of all the company and all the passengers on 
 board, but always, by land as well as by sea, did every body see it, 
 that belonged to the party of pilgrims to Jerusalem. Nay, so far is 
 this carried, that Bergarni cannot retire into the anti-chamber where 
 the Princess is to change her clothes, or for any other purpose, without 
 special care being taken, that the trusty, silent, honest, unintriguing 
 Swiss waiting-maid shall be placed at the door of that anti-room, and 
 told, " You wait here; we have occasion to retire for an hour or two, 
 and be naked together;" or at least she is at liberty to draw what 
 inferences she pleases from the fact. 
 
 But, my lords, I wish I could stop here. There are features of 
 peculiar enormity in the other parts of this case; and in proportion as 
 these disgusting scenes, are of a nature to annoy every one, however 
 unconcerned in the case, who hears them; to disgust and almost con- 
 taminate the mind of every one who is condemned to listen to them; 
 in that proportion is especial care taken that they shall not be done in 
 a corner. The place for them is not chosen in the hidden recesses of 
 those receptacles of abomination with which the continent abounds, 
 under the debased and vilified name of palaces; the place is not chosen 
 in the hidden haunts which lust has degraded to its own purposes, 
 some island where vice concealed itself from the public eye of ancient 
 times; it is not in those palaces, in those Capreas of old, that the 
 parties choose to commit such abominations; but they do it before 
 witnesses, in the light of open day, when the sun is at the meridian. 
 And that is not enough; the doing those deeds of unnatural sin in the 
 public high-ways is not enough; but they must have a courier of their 
 own to witness them, without the veil of any one part of the furniture 
 of a carriage, or of their own dress, to conceal from his eye their dis- 
 graceful situation! My lords, I ask your lordships whether vice was 
 ever known before so unwary; whether folly was ever known so 
 extravagant; whether unthinking passion, even in the most youthful 
 period, when the passions swell high, and the blood boils in the veins, 
 was ever known to act so thoughtlessly, so recklessly, so madly, as 
 VOL. i. 7
 
 74 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 this case compels me to fancy, as these shameless witnesses pretend 
 to represent? And when you have put the facts to your minds, let 
 this consideration dwell there, and let it operate as a check when you 
 come to examine the evidence hy which the case is supported. 
 
 But all this is nothing. Their kindness to the enemy their faith- 
 fulness to the plot against themselves their determination to work 
 their own ruin would be left short indeed, if it had gone no further 
 than this; for it would then depend upon the good fortune of their 
 adversary in getting hold of the witnesses; at least it might be ques- 
 tionable, whether the greater part of their precautions for their own 
 destruction might not have been thrown away. Therefore, every one 
 of these witnesses, without any exception, is either dismissed without 
 a cause, for I say the causes are mere flimsiness personified, or is 
 refused to be taken back, upon his earnest and humble solicitations, 
 when there was every human inducement to restore them to favor. 
 Even this is not all. Knowing what she had done; recollecting her 
 own contrivances; aware of all these cunning and elaborate devices 
 towards her own undoing; having before her eyes the picture of all 
 those schemes to render detection inevitable and concealment impos- 
 sible; reflecting that she had given the last finishing stroke to this 
 conspiracy of her own, by turning off these witnesses causelessly, 
 and putting them into the power of her enemy; knowing that that 
 enemy had taken advantage of her; knowing the witnesses were here 
 to destroy her, and told that if she faced them she was undone; and 
 desired, and counselled, and implored, again and again, to bethink 
 her well before she ran so enormous a risk: the Queen comes to 
 England, and is here, on this spot, and confronts those witnesses 
 whom she had herself enabled to undo her. Menaced with degra- 
 dation and divorce knowing it was not an empty threat that was 
 held out and seeing the denunciation was about to be accomplished 
 up to this hour she refuses all endeavors towards a compromise of 
 her honor and her rights; she refuses a magnificent retreat and the 
 opportunity of an unrestrained indulgence. in all her criminal propen- 
 sities, and even a safeguard and protection from the court of England, 
 and a vindication of her honor from the two Houses of Parliament. 
 If, my lords, this is the conduct of guilt; if these are the lineaments 
 by which vice is to be traced in the human frame; if these are the 
 symptoms of that worst of all states, dereliction of principle carried 
 to excess, when it almost becomes a mental disease; then I have 
 misread human nature; then I have weakly and groundlessly come 
 to my conclusion; for 1 have always uu lerstood that guilt was wary, 
 and innocence alone improvident. 
 
 Attend now, my lords, I beseech you, with these comments upon 
 the general features of the case, to the sort of evidence by which all 
 these miracles, these self-contradictions, these impossibilities, are 
 attempted to be established. I should exhaust myself, besides fatigu- 
 ing your lordships, if I were to pause here and make a few of the 
 cogent remarks which so readily offer themselves, upon the connec- 
 tion of that part of the case which I have now gone through, with
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 75 
 
 the part I am coming to. But there are one or two points so mate- 
 rial, that I cannot omit all mention of them before I proceed further. 
 I will make this observation, that if an ordinary case could not be 
 proved by such evidence as I am now to comment upon; if it would 
 require very different proofs in the most common story; if there were 
 even none of the improbabilities which I have shown a case, such 
 as that I have now described, ought to be proved by the most con- 
 vincing, the most pure, the most immaculate testimony. 
 
 My lords, I do not intend to assert, I have no interest in stating it, 
 that a conspiracy has been forming against the Queen, by those who 
 are the managers of the present proceeding. I say not such a thing. 
 I only show your lordships, that if there had been such a measure 
 resorted to; that if any persons had been minded to ruin her Majesty 
 by such a device: they could not have taken a better course, and pro- 
 bably they would not have taken a different course, from that which 
 I think the case of the prosecution proves them already to have pur- 
 sued. In any such design, the first thing to be looked to is the agents, 
 who are to make attacks against the domestic peace of an individual, 
 and to produce evidence of misconduct which never took place. 
 Who are those persons I am fancying to exist, if their existence be 
 conceivable who are those that they would have recourse to, to 
 make up a story against the victim of their spiteful vengeance? First 
 of all they would get the servants who have lived in the house. 
 Without them, it is almost impossible to succeed: with them, there is 
 the most brilliant prospect of a triumphant result. Servants who 
 have lived in the family were, in fact, all that could be desired. But, 
 if those servants were foreigners who were to be well tutored in 
 their part abroad, and had to deliver their story where they were 
 unknown, to be brought to a place whither they might never return 
 all their days, and to speak before a tribunal who knew no more of 
 them than they cared for it; whose threat they had no reason to 
 dread, whose good opinion they were utterly careless of; living tem- 
 porarily in a country to which they did not care two rushes whether 
 they returned or not, and indeed knew they never could return; those 
 were the identical persons such conspirators would have recourse to. 
 But, there is a choice among foreigners. All foreigners are not made 
 of the same materials; but, if any one country under heaven is 
 marked out more than all the rest as the OJ/icina gcntis for supply- 
 ing such a race, I say that country is the country of Augustus, Clo- 
 dius, and Borgia. I speak of its perfidies, without imputing them to 
 the people at large; but there in all ages perfidy could be had for 
 money, while there was interest to be satisfied, or spite to bo indulged. 
 
 I grant that there are in Italy, as every where else, most respect- 
 able individuals. I have myself the happiness of knowing many 
 Italian gentlemen in whose hands I should think my life or my honor 
 as safe as in the hands of your lordships. But I speak of those who 
 have not been brought here, when I make this favorable admission. 
 Those who have been brought over and produced at your bar, are 
 of a far other description: " Sunt in illo numero multi boni, docti,
 
 76 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 pudentes, qni ad hoc judicium deducti nou sunt: multi irapudentes, 
 
 iiliterati, leves, quos, variis de causis, video concitatos. Vernm tamen 
 hoc dico de toto genere Grsecomm; quibus jusjurandum jocus est; 
 testimonium Indus; existimatio vestra tenebrse; laus, merces, gratia, 
 gratulatio proposita est omnis in impudent! mendacio." My lords, 
 persons of this latter description were to be gotten by various means, 
 which the carelessness of the one party, which the wealth and power 
 of the supposed conspirators, placed within their reach. Money, 
 accordingly, has been given, with a liberality unheard of in any other 
 case, even of conspiracy; and where, by some marvel, money could 
 not operate, power has been called in to its aid. 
 
 Having thus procured their agents; having thus intrusted them; 
 how were they to be marshalled to compass the common design? 
 Uniformity of statement is above all things necessary in conspiracy. 
 Accordingly, they are taken, one by one, and carefully examined be- 
 fore one and the same person, assisted by the same coadjutors and 
 even the same clerks; they are moved in bodies along the country, 
 by even the same couriers; and these couriers are not the ordinary 
 runners of the Foreign Office of a country which shall be nameless, 
 who had some connection with the spot, but special messengers, 
 whose attention is devoted peculiarly to this department. Many of 
 the persons intended to be used themselves as witnesses, are employ- 
 ed as messengers; which keeps the different witnesses in the duo 
 recollection of their lesson, and has the effect of encouraging the zeal 
 of those witnesses, by giving them an office, an interest a concern in 
 the plot that is going on. Observe, then, how the drilling goes on. 
 It is not done in a day, nor in a week, hardly in a year: but it extends 
 over a long space of time; it is going on for months and years. The 
 Board is sitting at Milan. There they sit at the receipt of perjury; 
 there they carry on their operations, themselves ignorant, no doubt, 
 of its being perjury; but then, so long as it continues, so much the 
 more likely is the crop of gross perjury to be produced. The witnesses 
 are paid for their evidence: the tale is propagated by the person 
 receiving the money carrying it to his own neighborhood: and he 
 becomes the parent of a thousand tales, to be equally paid as they 
 deserve; and of which one is as false as the other. You mark the 
 care with which the operation is conducted; there is not a witness (I 
 mean an Italian witness) brought to this country, without previously 
 passing through the Milan drill; because, if they had not passed 
 through that preparatory discipline, there would be want of union 
 and agreement; so that even the mate of the polacca, Paturzo, who 
 was brought here to be examined on the morning after his arrival, 
 was brought through Milan, and passed his examination before the 
 same persons who had taken the former examinations. Aye, and the 
 captain too, who was examined by the Board, more than a year ago, 
 is carried by the way of Milan, to have a conversation with his old 
 friends there, who the year before had examined him to the same 
 story. Here, then, by these means recruited with this skill mar- 
 shalled, with all this apparatus and preparation made ready to come to
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 77 
 
 the field where they are to act you have the witnesses safely land- 
 ed in England; and in order that they may be removed from thence 
 suddenly, all in a mass, they are living together while here; then they 
 are carried over to Holland, and afterwards returned here; and finally 
 deposited, a day or two before their well-earned sustenance and well- 
 earned money require them to appear before your lordships. They 
 are now kept together in masses; formerly they lived in separate 
 rooms; it was necessary not to bring them together before; but those 
 of feeble recollection it was necessary afterwards to keep together, 
 for the convenience of constant mutual communication. There they 
 were, communicating to each other their experiences, animated by 
 the same feelings and hopes, prompted by the same motives to fur- 
 ther the same common cause. But not only this; according to the 
 parts of the story which they were to make out before your lordships, 
 they were put together. There are two Piedmontese: they did not 
 associate together in this contubcrnium, (for I know of no other 
 name by which to denote the place they occupied,) but one of them 
 kept company with the mate and captain of the polacca, because lie 
 tells the same story with themselves. It is needless to add, that they 
 are here cooped up in a state of confinement; here they are without 
 communicating with any body but themselves, ignorant of every 
 thing that is going on around them, and brought from that prison by 
 these means, in order to tell to your lordships the story which by such 
 means, has been got up among them. 
 
 My lords, I fear I may appear to have undervalued the character 
 of these Italians. Suffer me, then, to fortify myself upon the subject, 
 by saying, that I am not the person who has formed such an estimate 
 of the lowest orders of that country. And perhaps it may be some 
 assistance to your lordships, possibly some relief from the tedium of 
 these comments on the character of the evidence in support of the 
 bill, if I carry you back to a former period of the history of this coun- 
 try, and I shall take care not to choose any remote period, or resort 
 to circumstances very dissimilar from those which mark the present 
 day. Your lordships, I perceive, anticipate me. I naturally go back 
 to the reign of Henry VIII, and the proceedings against Catharine 
 of Arragon. And I shall show your lordships in what way we have 
 a right to view Italian testimony, though proceeding from sources 
 calculated to beget impressions very different from the statements of 
 discarded servants. You will find in the records of that age, in Ry- 
 mer's Collection, some curious documents with respect to the process 
 of Henry VIII. The great object, as your lordships know, was, to 
 procure and consult the opinions the free, unbiassed opinions of 
 the Italian jurists, in favor of his divorce. Rymer gives us the opin- 
 ions of the professors and doctors of several of the Italian universities; 
 and from them you will sec that, by a strange coincidence, these Docti 
 gave their " free, unbiassed opinions," in nearly the same words. I 
 shall select that of the most celebrated city of the whole, which is 
 known by the appellation of Hologna the Learned. The doctors there 
 say, one and all, that in compliance with the request of the King, they 
 
 7*
 
 73 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 each separately and unconnected with his fellows, had examined the 
 case; they had taken all the care which your lordships are taking 
 on the present occasion; and then, having well weighed the matter, 
 " Censemus, judicamus, dicimus, constantissime testamur, et indubie 
 affirmarnus," they say, that having sifted the question, they are one 
 and all of opinion, that Henry VIII has a right to divorce his queen. 
 But it seems that, from the great similarity of the opinions of the 
 doctors, and of the language in which these were expressed, there 
 existed at that time much the same suspicion of a previous drilling, 
 as appears to have prevailed in a certain other case which I shall not 
 now mention; and that to repel this suspicion, pretty nearly the same 
 precautions were used as in the other case. Indeed by a singular coin- 
 cidence, these Doctissimi Doctores of the sixteenth century were di- 
 rected to swear, which they might do with a safe conscience, that 
 they had never opened their mouths to one another on the subject, in, 
 the same manner as the illiterati et impudentes of the present proceed- 
 ing swore, that they had never talked to one another on the subject 
 of what each had to swear. The doctors and divines of Italy swore 
 on the Holy Gospel, " that they never had, directly or indirectly, com- 
 municated their sentence, or any word or thing concerning the same, 
 by sign, word, deed, or hint, until a certain day;" which was the day 
 they all came to understand the matter. 
 
 Now, my lords, all this appeared ^rz'wza facie, a very sound and 
 specious case; as every security had been taken to guard against cap- 
 tious objections; and with that character it would probably have passed 
 down to posterity, if there had been no such thing as a good historian 
 and honest man, in the person of Bishop Burnet; and he, with his 
 usual innocence, being a great advocate of Harry VI II, in consequence 
 of his exertions in support of the Reformation, tells the tale in the way 
 which I am now going to state; still leaning towards that king, but 
 undoubtedly letting out a little that is rather against himself. Harry 
 first provided himself with an able agent; and it was necessary that he 
 should also be a learned one. He took one, then, to whom my learned 
 friend, the Solicitor-general's eulogium on the head of the Milan com- 
 mission, would apply in some of the words; a man of great probity, 
 and singularly skilled in the laws of his country; and, by a still more 
 curious coincidence, the name of Harry's agent happened to be Cooke. 
 " He went up and down," says Burnet, " procuring hands; and he 
 told them he came to, that he desired they would write their conclu- 
 sions, according to learning and conscience," [as I hope has been done 
 at Milan,] " without any respect or favor, as they would answer it at 
 the last day; and he protested," [just as I have heard some other per- 
 sons do,] " that he never gave nor promised any divine anything, till 
 he had first freely written his mind;" and he says, that " what he then 
 gave, was rather an honorable present than a reward;" a compensation, 
 not a recompense, (to use the language of a right reverend interpreter.)* 
 
 * Bishop Marsh, being a great Germanic scholar, aided the House in explaining 
 this distinction taken by some witnesses.
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 79 
 
 These were the very words used in that country at that time, as they 
 have been recently in this. 
 
 Then, we have a letter from this agent, as who knows two hun- 
 dred years hence, there may not be letters from Milan? There is 
 extant a letter of Cooke's to" Henry VIII, dated the 1st of July 1530, 
 in which he says, " My fidelity bindeth me to advantage your high- 
 ness, that all Lutherans be utterly against yonr highness in this cause, 
 and have told as much, with their wrelched power, malice without 
 reason or authority, as they could and might; but I doubt not," says 
 he, "that all Christian universities," (Christian contradistinguished 
 from Lutheran!) " that all Christian ministers, if they be well handled, 
 will earnestly conclude with yonr highness. Albeit, gracious lord," 
 now comes he to expound what he means by the well-handling of the 
 Christian universities; " albeit, gracious lord, if that I had in time been 
 sufficiently furnished with money; albeit, I have, beside this seal, pro- 
 cured unto yonr highness 110 subscriptions; yet, it had been nothing, 
 in comparison of that that I might easily and would have done. And 
 herein I inclose a bill specifying by whom and to whom I directed my 
 said letters, in most humble wise beseeching your most royal clemency 
 to ponder my true love and good endeavoring, and not sutler me to 
 be destitute of money, to my undoing, and the utter loss of your most 
 high causes here." Now this, my lords, undoubtedly is the outward 
 history of the transaction; but we have only seen the accounts of Bishop 
 Burnet and of the agent Cooke. Happily, however, the Italian agent 
 employed by Henry VIII, one Peter a Ghinnuciis, the Vimercati of 
 that day, left his papers behind him, and we are furnished with the 
 original tariff, by which the value of the opinions of these Italian doc- 
 tors and divines was estimated. "Item, to a Servate friar, when he 
 subscribed, one crown; to a Jew, one crown; to the doctor of the Ser- 
 vites, two crowns; to the observant friars, two crowns; Item, to the 
 prior of St. John's and St. Paul's who wrote for the king's cause, fif- 
 teen crowns," the author was better paid than the advocate, as often 
 happens in better times. "Item, given to John Maira, for his expense 
 of going to Milan, and for rewarding the doctors there, thirty crowns." 
 There is a letter also from the bishop of Worcester to Cooke, directing 
 that lie should not promise rewards, " except to them that lived by 
 them, to the canonists who did not use to give their opinions without 
 a fee." The others he might get cheaper, those he must open his 
 hand to; because, he says, the canonists, the civilians, did not use to 
 give an opinion without a fee. Bishop Burnet, with the native sim- 
 plicity and honesty of his character, sums up all this with remarking, 
 that these Italian doctors " must have had very prostituted consciences, 
 when they could be hired so cheap. It is true that Cooke, in many 
 of his letters, says, that if he had had money enough, he could get the 
 hands of all the divines in Italy; for he found the greatest part of them 
 were mercenary." 
 
 My lords, the descendants of those divines and doctors, I am sorry 
 to say, have rather improved than backslidden from the virtues of 
 their ancestors; and, accordingly, I trust your lordships will permit me
 
 80 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 to bring the tale down to the present day, and to connect the present 
 proceeding with the divorce of Harry the Eighth's time. I trust your 
 lordships will allow me to read to you the testimony, given in the 
 year 1792. of a native of Italy, of distinguished family, who was em- 
 ployed in a diplomatic character, by an august individual, who was 
 near being the victim of an Italian conspiracy: he published a letter, 
 and it is evidence, I say, because it was published before the whole 
 Italian nation in their own tongue, and it states what Italian evidence 
 is made of; and he addressed it, with his name, to the prime minister 
 of the country, that minister enjoying the highest civil and military 
 authority there, and being by descent a subject of the British crown 
 I mean General Acton. " To the dishonor of human nature," says 
 the writer, " there is nothing at Naples so notorious as the free and 
 public sale of false evidence. Their ordinary tariff is three or four 
 ducats, according to the necessities of those wh > sell, and the occasions 
 of those who buy it. If, then, you would support a suit, alter a will, 
 or forge a hand-writing, you have only to castaway remorse and open 
 your purse, the shop of perjury is ever open " It poured in upon him 
 in a full tide: he made his appeal in such words as I have now read: 
 he and his royal master, who was implicated in the charge, were ac- 
 quitted by such an appeal; and I now repeal it, when such evidence 
 is brought to support charges as atrocious, as ruinous, and far more 
 incredible in themselves, than that an Italian should have suborned an 
 agent to injure a fellow-creature. 
 
 My lords, I have been drawn aside from the observations I was 
 making, generally, of the manner in which this case has been prepared. 
 I pray your lordships to observe how these witnesses all act after they 
 come into court; and the first thing that must strike an observer here, 
 is the way in which they mend their evidence how one improves 
 upon the other after an interval of time and how each improves, 
 when required, upon himself. I can only proceed, my lords, in dealing 
 with this subject of conspiracy and false swearing, by sample: but I 
 will take the one that first strikes me; and I think it will effectually 
 illustrate my proposition. Your lordships must remember the manner 
 in which my learned friend, the Attorney-general, opened the case of 
 Mahomet, the dancer. Again, I take his own words: " A man of the 
 most brutal and depraved habits, who at the Villa d'Este exhibited 
 the greatest indecencies at various times, in the presence of her Ma- 
 jesty and Bergami exhibitions which are too disgusting to be more 
 than alluded to the most indecent attempts to imitate the sexual in- 
 tercourse. This person deserves not the name of a man," said the 
 Attorney-general. Now, my lords, I take this instance, because it 
 proves the proposition which I was stating to your lordships, better, 
 perhaps, than any other. All show it, to a degree; but this, best of all; 
 because I have shown your lordships how careful the Attorney-gen- 
 eral is in opening the case, and how strong his expressions are; con- 
 sequently, he felt the importance of this fact; he was aware how 
 damaging it would be to the Queen; he knew it was important to 
 state this, and he felt determined not to be disappointed when he had
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 81 
 
 once and again failed he brought three witnesses; and if one would 
 not swear the first time, he brought him again. Now, my lords, if I 
 show the symptoms of mending and patching in one part of such a 
 case, it operates as volumes against the whole of that case; if your 
 lordships find it here, you may guess it is not wanting elsewhere. 
 But here it is most manifestly to be seen. Your lordships plainly per- 
 ceived what it was that these witnesses were intended and expected 
 to say. You no sooner heard the first question put you no sooner 
 heard the grossly leading questions with which the Solicitor-general 
 followed it than you must have known it was expected that an in- 
 decent act would be sworn to that an exhibition would be sworn to 
 of the most gross and indecent description; and one part of the evidence 
 I can hardly recount to your lordships. Now see, my lords, how the 
 first witness swore; this is their first and main witness, who is brought 
 to prove their whole case Majocchi. He will only allow and this 
 is the first stage in which this deity of theirs is brought before your 
 lordships he will only allow it was a dance. " Did you observe any 
 thing else?" the usual answer, " Noil mi ricordo;" but " if there was, 
 I have not seen it," and l< I do not know." Was any thing done by 
 Mahomet, upon that occasion, with any part of his dress?" says the 
 Solicitor-general, evidently speaking from what he had before him 
 written down; " He made use of the linen of his large pantaloons." 
 How did he use his trowsers? Did he do any thing with the linen of 
 his pantaloons or trowsers?" " His trowsers were always in the same 
 state as usual." Here, then, was a complete failure no shadow of 
 proof of those mysteries which this witness was expected to divulge. 
 This was when he was examined on the Tuesday. On the Friday, 
 with the interval of two days and your lordships, for reasons best 
 known to yourselves, but which must have been bottomed in justice 
 guided by wisdom wisdom never more seen or better evidenced than 
 in varying the course of conduct, and adapting to now circumstances 
 the actions we perform wisdom which will not, if it be perfect in its 
 kind, and absolute in its degree, ever sustain any loss by the devia- 
 tion for this reason alone, in order that injustice might not be done, 
 (for what, in one case, may be injurious to a defendant, may be ex- 
 pected mainly to assist a defendant in another) your lordships, not 
 with a view to injure the Queen your lordships, with a view to fur- 
 ther not to frustrate, the ends of justice allowed the evidence to be 
 printed, which afforded to the witnesses, if they wished it, means to 
 mend and improve upon their testimony. Your lordships allowed 
 this, solely with the intention of gaining for the Queen that unanimous 
 verdict, which the country has pronounced in her favor, by looking 
 at the case, against her; your lordships, however, whatever might be 
 your motive, did, in point of fact, allow all the evidence against her 
 to he published from day to day. Accordingly, about two days inter- 
 vened between Majocchi's evidence, and the evidence of Uirollo; dur- 
 ing which lime, Dirollo had access to Majocchi's deposition, as well as 
 to his person; and it is no little assistance, if we have not only access 
 to the witness but to his testimony; because he may forget what ho
 
 83 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 has sworn, and it is something that he himself, as well as the second, 
 the following, the mending, the patching witness, should see the story 
 first told. Accordingly, with the facility which this gave him, forward 
 Birollo comes, after two days' interval, and improves upon the story; 
 from a dance, and from the usual handling, or ordinary use of the 
 trowsers, he first makes a rotulo or roll. The witness then begins to 
 hint at some indecency; but he does not mention it. He starts and 
 draws back. For my part I cannot tell what he meant; and he really 
 adds something, which lie, in his awn wicked imagination, might think 
 indecent, but he is forced to admit he does not know what it meant. 
 But, on the Wednesday following, a third witness comes, the second 
 of the patchers, and he finishes it altogether. He improves even upon 
 Birollo; and he tells you, in plain, downright terms, that which I have 
 a right to say is, because I can prove it to be, false which I have a 
 right to say, before proving it, is false; because I know the same dance 
 was witnessed by wives and daughters, as modest and pure as any of 
 your lordships have the happiness of possessing by wives and daugh- 
 ters of your lordships in those countries. 
 
 Now, another improvement, and mending, and patching, suffer me, 
 my lords, to advert to; for it runs through he whole case. I do not 
 even stop to offer any comment upon the non mi ricordovf Majocchi; 
 nor on the extraordinary fact of that answer being regularly dropped 
 by the other witnesses, as soon as the impression which the repetition 
 had made on the public mind was fully understood; but I wish to 
 call your lordships' attention to the more important point of money. 
 No sooner had Gargiuolo the captain, and Paturzo the mate of the 
 polacca, proved that they were brought here by sums so dispropor- 
 tioned to the service, by sums so infinitely beyond the most ample 
 remuneration for their work; that they were bribed by sums such as 
 Italians in their situation never dreamed of no sooner had this fact 
 dropped out, than one arid all of them are turned into disinterested 
 witnesses, not one of whom ever received a shilling by way of com- 
 pensation for what they did. " Half-a-crown a day for the loss of 
 my time my travelling expenses and a few stivers to feed my family!" 
 The expectation of his expenses being paid, began in the instance of 
 of the cook, Birollo, He told you he had nothing at all but his 
 trouble for coming here. " Do you expect nothing?" " I hope to 
 go soon home to find my master." The cook at first was offered and 
 refused money. The others had nothing offered; Demont nothing! 
 Sacchi nothing! though true, he, a courier, turns out to be a man of 
 large property, and says, " thank God! I have always been in easy 
 circumstances;" thank God! with a pious gratitude truly edifying. 
 A man who must have a servant of his own who had one in Eng- 
 land who must live here at the expense of four or five hundred 
 pounds a year, which is equal to fourteen or fifteen hundred in Italy 
 goes to be a courier, is angry at being turned off, and is anxious 
 to return to that situation! I believe the captain and the mate. They 
 avowed that what they had was enormous payment; and the other 
 witnesses, hearing of the effect of that confession, have one and all
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 83 
 
 denied having received any tiling, and would not even confess (hat 
 they had any expectations for the fun ire. 
 
 The last of these general observations with which I shall trouble 
 your lordships, and which I own I think your lordships must have 
 been impatient I should come to, regards the great blanks among the 
 witnesses for the prosecution I mean the fewness of those witnesses 
 compared with whattl>eir own testimony, and their own statement that 
 introduced it show your lordships the advocates of the Bill ought to 
 have called. My lords, I conjure you to attend to this circumstance, 
 for it is a most important point in the whole of the case. I say, that 
 if I had not another argument to urge I should stand confidently 
 upon this ground. If the case were as ordinary as it is extravagant 
 if it were as probable as it is loaded in every feature with the gross- 
 est improbabilities if it were as much in the common course of 
 human events, that such occurrences as those which have been alleged 
 should have happened, as it is the very reverse I should still stand 
 confidently and firmly upon that part of the case to which I have 
 now happily arrived. I know, my lords, that it is bold; I know 
 that it is bold even to rashness, to say so much of any point before I 
 have begun even to hint at it; but I feel so perfectly, so intimately 
 convinced, that in such a case as the present, the circumstances to 
 which I refer ought to be fatal to the Bill before your lordships, that 
 I consider myself as even acting prudently, in declaring, by anticipa- 
 tion, what I hold to be its character. 
 
 My lords, the Attorney-general told us that there were rumors at 
 Naples pointing to reasons why the Queen's ladies left her; it turned 
 out, that instead of leaving her, one had joined her at Naples, one 
 had joined her at Leghorn, and another at Genoa, afterwards; but 
 my learned friend said, that one left her, and one or two others 
 stayed behind, and rumors were not wanting that their doing so was 
 owing to the impropriety of her Majesty's conduct. Humors! My 
 learned friend may say, that these were rumors which he was unable 
 to prove. But if they were rumors which had any foundation what- 
 ever; if they were such rumors as my learned friend had a right to 
 allude to, (even if he had a right to refer to rumor at all, which I 
 deny); if there was a shadow of foundation for those rumors; why 
 did he not call the obvious witnesses to prove it? Where were those 
 ladies, women of high rank and elevated station in society, well- 
 known in their own country, loved, esteemed, and respected, as wo- 
 men upon whoso character not a vestige of imputation has ever 
 rested women of talents as well as character the very persons to 
 have brought forward, if he had dared to bring them forward why 
 were all of these kept back, each of whom formed the very signal, and 
 I had almost said extravagant, contrast to all the witnesses, but two, 
 whom my learned friend did venture to call to your lordships' bar? 
 Why were those noble ladies not produced to your lordships? Why 
 had not your lordships, why had not we, the benefit of having the 
 case proved against us in the manner in which any judge sitting at 
 the Old Bailey would command, upon pain of an acquittal, any prose-
 
 84 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 cuter to prove his charge against an ordinary felon? Certainly they 
 were in onr employment; they were in some way connected with our 
 interest; they received salaries from the Queen, and might be sup- 
 posed to be amicably disposed towards her. My lords, is there in all 
 that the shadow of a shade of a reason why they should not have 
 been adduced? I am not speaking in a civil action. I am not deal- 
 ing with a plaintiff's case, in a suit upon a bill of exchange for 
 twenty pounds. I am not even speaking in a case of misdemeanor, 
 or a case of felony, or the highest crime known in the law, between 
 which and the act alleged to have been committed by my illustrious 
 client it is difficult to draw even a technical distinction. But I stand 
 here on a Bill of Pains and Penalties, which your lordships are not 
 bound to pass; which you may give the go-by to; which you are not 
 bound to say aye or no to. Your lordships are not sitting as commis- 
 sioners of Oyer and Terminer to try a case of high treason. Gracious 
 God! is this a case in which the prosecutor is to be allowed to bring 
 forward half a case? Is this an occasion on which the prosecutor is 
 to be allowed to say, " These witnesses I will not call. True it is, 
 that they are respectable; and that they are unimpeachable, no man 
 can deny. If they swear against the Queen she is utterly undone. 
 But I will not call them. I will leave them for you to call. They 
 are not my witnesses, but yours. You may call them. They corne 
 from your vicinity. They are not tenants of the Cotton Garden, and 
 therefore I dare not, I will not produce them; but when you call 
 them, we shall see what they state; and if you do not call them'-' 
 in the name of justice, what? Say! Say! For shame in this temple 
 this highest temple of Justice, to have her most sacred rules so pro- 
 faned, that I am to be condemned in the plenitude of proof, if guilt 
 is; that I am to be condemned unless I run counter to the presump- 
 tion which bears sway in all courts of justice, that I am innocent un- 
 til I am proved guilty; and that my case is to be considered as utterly 
 ruined, unless I call my adversary's witnesses! Oh most monstrous! 
 most incredible! My lords, rny lords! if you mean ever to show 
 the face of those symbols by which Justice is known to your country, 
 without making them stand an eternal condemnation of yourselves, I 
 call upon you instantly to dismiss this case, and for this single reason; 
 and I will say not another word upon the subject. 
 
 Having gone over the features of this portentous case, I am now to 
 solicit the attention of your lordships, and I am afraid at greater length 
 than any thing could justify but the unparalleled importance of the 
 occasion, to a consideration more in detail, of the evidence by which 
 it has been supported. And in point of time as indeed of importance, 
 the first figure that was presented to your lordships in the group, 
 must naturally have arisen to your recollection the moment I an- 
 nounced my intention of touching upon the merits of the different 
 witnesses I mean Theodore Majocchi, of happy memory, who will 
 be long known in this country, and every where else, much after the 
 manner in which ancient sages have reached our day, whose names 
 are lost in the celebrity of the little saying by which each is now dis-
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 85 
 
 tinguished by mankind, and in which they were known to have em- 
 bodied the practical result of their own experience and wisdom; and, 
 as long as those words which he so often used in the practice of that 
 art and skill which he had acquired by long experience and much 
 care as long as those words shall be known among men, the image 
 of Majocchi, without naming him will arise to their remembrance. 
 My lords, this person is a witness of great importance; he was the 
 first called, and the latest examined; beginning with the case continu- 
 ing by it, and accompanying it throughout. His evidence almost 
 extended over the whole of the period through which the case and 
 the charge itself extends. If indeed you believe him, he was only 
 dismissed or rather retired from the Queen's service and refused to 
 be taken back, about the time when the transactions in the charge 
 closed. He and Demont stand aloof from the rest of the witnesses, 
 and resemble each other in this particular, that they go through the 
 whole case. They are, indeed, the great witnesses to prove it; they 
 are emphatically the witnesses for the Bill, the others being confirma- 
 tory only of them; but, as willing witnesses are wont to do as 
 those who have received much and been promised more, may be 
 expected to do they were zealous on behalf of their employers, and 
 did not stop short of the two main witnesses, but they each carried 
 the case a great deal further. This is generally, with a view to their 
 relative importance, the character of all the witnesses. 
 
 Now, only let me entreat your lordships' attention, while I enter 
 on this branch of the subject a little more in detail. I have often 
 heard it remarked, that the great prevailing feature of Majocchi's 
 evidence his want of recollection signifies, in truth, but little; 
 because a man may forget memories differ. I grant that they do. 
 Memory differs, as well as honesty, in man. I do not deny that. 
 But I think I shall succeed in showing your lordships, that there is a 
 sort of memory which is utterly inconsistent with any degree of 
 honesty in any man, which I can figure to myself. But why do I 
 talk of fancy? for I have only to recollect Majocchi; and I know 
 cases, in which I defy the wit of man to conceive stronger or more 
 palpable instances of false swearing, than may be conveyed to the 
 hearers and to the court in the remarkable words, " Non mi ricordo 
 I do not remember." I will not detain your lordships, by pointing 
 out cases, where the answer, " I do not remember," would be inno- 
 cent, where it might be meritorious, where it might be confirmatory of 
 his evidence, and a support to his credit. Neither need I adduce 
 cases where such an answer would be the reverse of this where it 
 would be destructive to his credit, and the utter demolition of his 
 testimony. I will not quote any of those cases. I shall content my- 
 self with taking the evidence of Majocchi as it stands; for if I had 
 been lecturing on evidence, I should have said, as the innocent for- 
 getfulness is familiar to every man, so is the guilty forgetfulness; and 
 in giving an instance, I should just have found it all in Majocchi's 
 actual evidence. 
 
 At once, then, to give your lordships proof positive that this man 
 VOL. i. 8
 
 86 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 is perjured proof which I shall show to be positive, from his mode 
 of forgetting. In the first place, I beg your lordships' attention to 
 the way in which this witness swore hardily in chief, eke as hardily 
 in cross-examination, to the position of the rooms of her Majesty and 
 Bergami. The great object of the Attorney-general, as shown by 
 his opening, was that for which the previous concoction of this plan 
 by these witnesses had prepared him; namely, to prove the position 
 of the Queen's and Bergami's rooms always to have been favorable 
 to the commission of adultery, by showing that they were near, and 
 had a mutual communication; whereas, the rooms of all the rest of 
 the suite were distant and cut off; and the second part of that state- 
 ment was just as essential as the first, to make it the foundation of 
 an inference of guilt, which it was meant to support. Accordingly, 
 the first witness who was to go over their whole case, appears to have 
 been better prepared on this point, than any ten that followed; he 
 showed more memory of inferences more forgeifulness of details 
 perfect recollection to attack the Queen utter forgetfulness to protect 
 himself from the sifting of a cross-examination. "Where did the 
 Queen and Bergami sleep?" " Her Majesty slept in an apartment 
 near that of Bergami." " Were those apartments near or remote?" 
 for it was often so good a thing to get them near and communicating 
 with each other, that it was press.ed again and again. " Where were 
 the rest of the suite; were they distant or near?" says the Solicitor- 
 general. This was at Naples; and this is a specimen of the rest 
 for more was made of that proximity at Naples than any where else 
 "Were they near or distant?" " They were apart." The word 
 in Italian was lontano, which was interpreted " apart." I remarked, 
 however, at the time, that it meant "distant," and distant it meant, 
 or it meant nothing. Here, then, the witness had sworn distinctly, 
 from his positive recollection, and had staked his credit on the truth 
 of a fact, and also of his recollection of it upon this fact, whether 
 or not the Queen's room was near Bergami's, with a communication? 
 But no less had he put his credit upon this other branch of his state- 
 ment, essential to the first, in order to make both combined the found- 
 ation of a charge of criminal intercourse, "that the rest of the suite 
 were lodged apart a;;d distant." There is an end, then, of innocent 
 forgetfulness, if, when I come to ask where the rest slept, he either 
 tells me, "I do not know," or " I do not recollect;" because he had 
 known and must have recollected, that when he presumed to say to 
 my learned friends, these two rooms were alone of all the apartments 
 near and connected, that the others were distant and apart; when he 
 said that, he affirmed at once his recollection of the proximity of those 
 rooms and his recollection of the remoteness of the others. He swore 
 that at first, and afterwards said, " I know not," or " I recollect not," 
 and perjured himself as plainly as if he had told your lordships one 
 day that he saw a person, and the next said he never saw him in his 
 life; the one is not a more gross or diametrical contradiction than 
 the other. Trace him, my lords, in his recollection and forgetfulness 
 observe where he remembers and where he forgets and you will
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 87 
 
 find the same conclusion following you every where, and forcing upon 
 you the same conviction. I will give one specimen from the evi- 
 dence itself, to show your lordships he has no lack of memory when 
 it is to suit his purpose; when it is to prove a story where he has 
 learned his lesson, and when he is examined in chief. When, in 
 short, he knows who is dealing with him, and is only anxious to carry 
 on the attack, I will show your lordships what his recollection is made 
 of. You shall have a fair sample of his recollection here. I asked 
 him, " Have you ever seen the villa d'Este since the time you came 
 back from the long voyage?" He had been examined in chief upon 
 this, and had stated distinctly with respect to the villa d'Este, the state 
 of the rooms; and I wanted to show the accuracy of his recollection 
 on those parts where he was well drilled " Have you ever seen the 
 villa d'Este since the time you came back from the long voyage?" 
 " I have." " Was the position of the rooms the same as it had been 
 before, with respect to the Queen and Berganii?" "They were not 
 in the same situation as before." Then the witness gives a very 
 minute particular of the alterations. A small corridor was on one 
 side of the .Princess's room on her return. " Was there a sitting 
 room on the other side of it, not opposite, but on one of the other 
 sides of it?" Now attend, my lords, to the particularity "There 
 was a small corridor, on the left of which there was a door that led 
 into the room of the Princess, which was only locked; and then going 
 a little farther on in the corridor, there was on the left hand a small 
 room, and opposite to this small room there was another door which 
 led into the room where they supped in the evening. There was this 
 supping-room on the right, there was a door which led intoBergami's 
 room, and on the same right hand of the same room there was a 
 small alcove, where there was the bed of Bartolomeo Bergami." 
 Again: "How many doors were there in the small sitting-room 
 where they supped?" "I saw two doors open always, but there 
 was a third stopped by a picture." "Where did her royal highness's 
 maid sleep?" " On the other side, in another apartment." Now, 
 my lords, can any recollection be more minute, more accurate, more 
 perfect in every respect, than Majocchi's recollection is of all these 
 minute details, which he thinks it subservient to his purpose to give 
 distinctly, be they true or be they not? I do not deny them my 
 case is, that much of what is true is brought forward; but they graft 
 falsehood on it. If an individual were to invent a story entirely; if 
 he were to form it completely of falsehoods; the result would be his 
 inevitable detection; but if he build a structure of falsehood on the 
 foundation of a little truth, he may raise a tale which, with a good 
 deal of drilling, may put an honest man's life, or an illustrious 
 Princess's reputation, in jeopardy. If the whole edifice, from top to 
 bottom, should be built on fiction, it is sure to fall; but if it be built 
 on a mixture of facts, it may put an honest man's life or reputation 
 in jeopardy. Now, I only wish your lordships to contrast this accu- 
 racy of recollection upon this subject, and upon many other points 
 a few of which I shall give you specimens of with his not having
 
 88 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 the slightest recollection of a whole new wing having been added to 
 the Princess's villa. He recollects the smallest alteration of a bed- 
 room or a door; but he has not the sligthest recollection of the throw- 
 ing up a new wing to the house. This memory of his at the least is 
 a capricious memory. But I will show your lordships that it is a 
 dishonest one also. Of the same nature is his evidence, when any 
 calculation of time is required. He observes the most trifling distinc- 
 tion of time when it suits his purpose; and he recollects nothing of 
 time when it is inconvenient for his object. In proof of this, I request 
 your lordships to refer again to the celebrated scene at Naples. There 
 this witness remembers down to minutes, the exact time which her 
 Majesty passes, upon two occasions, in Bergami's room: upon the 
 first occasion, she remains from ten to fifteen minutes; on the second, 
 from fifteen to eighteen minutes; that is to say, taking the medium, 
 sixteen-and-a-half minutes, true time. Upon another occasion, he 
 tells you an affair lasted a quarter of a n hour. Upon another occasion 
 he fired a gun, and then altogether fifteen minutes elapse a quarter 
 of an hour there. He is equally accurate about three quarters of an 
 hour in another instance; that is, at Genoa, which I have spoken of 
 before. The other instance was on the voyage. All this fulness of 
 memory this complete accuracy as to time was in answer to my 
 learned friend; all this was in the examination in chief; all this was 
 thought by the witness essential to his story; all this garnished the 
 detail of which the story is made up, and gave it that appearance of 
 accuracy which was essential to the witness's purpose. But when it 
 was my turn to question when I came to ask him the time, and 
 when the answer would be of use to the Queen; when it was of use, 
 not to the prosecution, but to the defence see how totally he is lost! 
 Then he does not know whether they travelled all night whether 
 they travelled for four hours or eight hours. In answer to a question 
 upon that subject, he says, " I had no watch, I do not know the 
 length of time." No watch! Possibly. And do not know the length 
 of time! Very likely. But had you a watch when you saw the 
 Queen go into the room of Bergami? Did you accidentally know 
 the time when it suited your purpose to know it to a minute? Why 
 know the precise time so accurately on one occasion, and be so totally 
 ignorant of it on another? He pleads the want of a watch only 
 when it would suit the purpose of the defence, and bring out the 
 truth; or, what comes to the same thing, would convict himself, were 
 he to know the time. With respect to the category of numbers, he 
 cannot tell whether there were two or two-and-twenty sailors aboard 
 the Polacca. He cannot tell more with respect to place, that other 
 category of his deposition. Although he slept in the hold, he does 
 not know where the others slept; he cannot tell where they were by 
 night or by day; he knows perhaps that they were on deck in the 
 day, but he cannot say where they were at night. In short, I ask 
 your lordships, whether a witness with a more flexible and conve- 
 nient memory ever appeared in a court of justice? 
 
 But this is not all, my lords. There is much in the evidence of this
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 89 
 
 man, in which the answer," I do not recollect," or, " I do not know," 
 cannot, by possibility, be true, if the answers given in the examination 
 in chief be true: as in the first instance which I gave you at Naples. 
 If the minuteness sworn to in his examination in chief was true, and 
 founded in fact, it is impossible that he should have no recollection of 
 the matters to which he was cross-examined. If it was true that the 
 rooms and doors were as he described them, he could not, by possi- 
 bility, know and recollect that fact, and yet be in total ignorance of the 
 other parts of the house. In the same manner, when I examine him 
 respecting Mr. Hughes, a banker's clerk at Bristol, he knows nothing of 
 the name nothing of his being a banker's clerk never knew a ban- 
 ker's clerk has no recollection of him. But when he sees that I have 
 got hold of a letter of his which he knew nothing about at that time, 
 and which he perhaps forgot having committed himself by; the moment 
 he sees that, and before I ask him a single word to refresh his memory 
 you plainly see by his demeanor and the tone of his answer, that he had 
 never forgotten Mr. Hughes at all, and that he never had forgotten his 
 being a banker's clerk. " Oh!" he says, " I was in the habit of calling 
 him brother, it was a joke on account of the familiarity in which we 
 were." Thus it appears, that the familiarity makes him forget a man 
 of that kind, although he says that familiarity was the ground of his 
 calling him familiarly and habitually brother. It was manifest that Ma- 
 jocchiwasnot very well pleased to recollect all that passed in that family, 
 he being a married man, and having made a proposal of marriage to a 
 female there, which he attempted to laugh off, with what success, I 
 leave your lordships to judge. He was not willing to recollect the 
 name, or trade, or connection with that family, until he knew that all 
 was known. 
 
 But, my lords, before we have done with Majocchi, we have other 
 instances of that extraordinary instrument, as it has been called, I 
 mean, memory; we have other instances of the caprices of which it is 
 susceptible. Your lordships recollect the shuffling, prevaricating an- 
 swers he gave respecting the receipt of money. He first said, he had 
 received money from Lord Stewart to carry him to Milan. He after- 
 wards, twice over, swore he never received money at Vienna from any 
 person. Then comes the answer which I can only give in his own 
 words; for none other will convey an adequate idea of his style. lie 
 says," I remember to have received no money when I arrived at Milan; 
 I remember 1 did not: <non so;' I do not know; ' piu no die si;' more 
 no than yes; ' non mi ricordo;' I do not remember." 
 
 Now, my lords, I have a little guess what sort of an evidence this 
 Majocchi gave when he was laying the foundation of that favor which 
 he has since uninterruptedly enjoyed in the councils of our adversaries, 
 I mean, the Attorney and Solicitor general. When, during his pre- 
 vious examination, he was laying these foundations, deep and wide, 
 upon which his fortune was to be built, your lordships will perceive, 
 that he recollected a great deal which he is now ignorant of. In the 
 opening speech of my learned friend much was stated which this wit- 
 ness was expected to prove, and of which 1 have before given your 
 
 8*
 
 90 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 lordships an instance or two, and which I will not repeat further than 
 to remind your lordships, that Majocchi was to have proved the kissing 
 in the room between that of the Princess and Bergami at Naples. On 
 the contrary, the witness negatives it in the completest manner, by 
 his saying it was only " whispering," and not kissing. This single in- 
 stance shows the whole character of this man's testimony; but I will 
 remind your lordships of one or two others, not so striking from the 
 nature of them, but just as fatal to the credit of the witness; because 
 they all show, that he had told one story to the instructors of my 
 learned friends, a story recorded in the briefs from which they put 
 their questions, and another story Xo your lordships. When ques- 
 tioned here as to those points, he was staggered for some reason, pos- 
 sibly from knowing the facts and documents which I had got in my 
 possession, but more probably from having forgotten part of his story. 
 This is just one of the means by which to detect a contrived plot. Such 
 partial forgetfulness is much more likely to take place, where the 
 whole is an invention, than where there is truth at the foundation of 
 the testimony. So it is in this case. Majocchi recollects part of his 
 testimony. "Yes," is ready for the question: but parts of it does not 
 recollect. For it is perfectly evident, that what a person has actually 
 seen is more intensely impressed on his mind and more firmly retained 
 in his recollection, than what he has invented and imagined. I am 
 referring, my lords, to the Solicitor general's examination of Majocchi 
 He is asked, " Did you bring Bergami any broth?" " Often," is the 
 answer. He then states, that he was ordered to sleep in a cabinet ad- 
 joining Bergami's room, and that when there, pretending to be asleep, 
 the Princess passed through to the room of Bergami; and then he is 
 asked, " After the Princess had entered the bedroom of Bergami, did 
 you hear any conversation?" That would have been enough; it is 
 not a leading question, but it would have been enough to make the 
 witness recollect; but conversation was not what my learned friend 
 was after; "Did you hear any conversation, or any thing else?" 
 That was a broad hint. The man had said something before, which 
 had been taken down, and was in my learned friend's hand. Now, 
 there was something there which he had said before elsewhere, and 
 my learned friend wanted to get that out here. If it had been true, 
 why should not the man recollect it? But he forgot it. He forgot 
 part of his own invention; a situation to which a certain class of men, 
 that I shall not now mention, are often exposed a class whom the 
 old proverb advises to have good memories. So my learned friend, 
 skilfully enough, said, " Did you hear any conversation or any thing 
 else, pass between them?" " Only some whispers." Now, do your 
 lordships want to know whether my learned friend meant whispering 
 I say, No. I say, I read as much as if I saw the printed paper 
 which was in his hand.* My learned friend, the Attorney-general had 
 opened very differently; but, besides, from the examination of the So- 
 
 * The Briefs of the Crown counsel were all printed at a private press, being drawn 
 frem the collections of the Milan Commission.
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 91 
 
 licitor-general, it is evident, that by his "something else," more than 
 whispering was expected to come out, had the witness taken the hint. 
 If Majocchi had never before said, that something more than whis- 
 pering had passed between the parties, my learned friend would have 
 been satisfied. But he proceeds to ask him, " Do you recollect having 
 heard or observed any thing when the Princess was in Bergami's room 
 the second time!" "Whispering conversation," says he again. 
 Another instance of the same sort occurs, and I hope it will not be 
 thought too minute to go into it; for it is only in this way that con- 
 spiracies are detected, that perjury is exposed, that wickedness is dis- 
 appointed. My lords, there was a story told about the Princess riding 
 upon an ass. " At Genoa, you saw her royal highness riding on an ass?" 
 " Yes." There was a great deal more in his former statement than 
 he dared say now. " Did you, upon these occasions, make any obser- 
 vations as to any thing that passed between the Princess and Bergami?" 
 " Yes." My learned friend thought he was quite secure there. It is 
 not a thing that happens every day to see a Princess of Wales riding 
 about on an ass. " State what passed at the time she was riding on 
 an ass?" " He took her round her waist to put her upon the ass." 
 My learned friend thought he was safe landed. " What else?" " He 
 held her" Aye, that will do very well; a great deal may be done 
 with the word "holding;" a great deal depends on the tenure "He 
 held her hand lest her royal highness should fall." Ah! that won't 
 do. My learned friend is not satisfied with that. Indeed, he must 
 have been satisfied easily, if that had contented him. But, having 
 something in his hand which the witness had sworn to before con- 
 vinced it must be brought to his recollection again not knowing he 
 was trying to do a very difficult thing, namely to make a false swearer 
 recollect his fiction, but, trying, as he thought, to make a true man re- 
 collect what he had actually seen, my learned friend proceeded "Did 
 you make any other observation?" " I have made no other observa- 
 tion; they spoke; they discoursed." The failure of my learned friend 
 was thus complete. And there are a number of anecdotes of the same 
 sort the breakfast at the Benedictine convent, and other things, which 
 were equally inventions, with this difference, that, as always happens 
 to men engaged in such a vilo concern, they forget parts that are just 
 as specific and clear as the parts they recollect; and which, if they had 
 been true, they would have recollected just as well. 
 
 I might remind your lordships, upon this head of Majocchi's evi- 
 dence, of the incredible nature of his story respecting what took 
 place at Naples. He would have you to believe, that having free 
 access to the bed-room of Bergami through other rooms in which no 
 persons slept, which free access he was compelled, after repeated 
 prevarications, much equivocal swearing, and several positive denials, 
 at length to admit after a very pressing examination that having 
 this secret, easy, safe access to that place of guilt, the bed-room of 
 Bergami, the Princess preferred the other way, through the room 
 where she knew Majocchi slept, where she saw that he slept in a 
 bed without curtains, in a room so small that she could not go through
 
 92 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 it without almost touching his bed in a room too in which there 
 was a fire to give light, and show her passing through it. But, what 
 is the most monstrous thing of all, he tells you that Her Majesty, in 
 order to make her detection inevitable, as she passed through the 
 room, went to the bed and looked him in the face, to ascertain wheth- 
 er or not he was asleep! Now, this story defeats itself and discredits 
 the teller. You cannot believe it; no! it carries its own refutation 
 along with it. What, my lords! are you to suppose that Her Majesty 
 voluntarily passed through a room where she must have been seen 
 if the person was awake, when she knew she might have gone an- 
 other way, where she could not possibly have been seen? She knew 
 that Majocchi slept in that room she knew the disposition of his 
 bed she knew that there was a fire kept in the room knowing all 
 this, she voluntarily passed through it, stopping in her way to look the 
 witness straight in the face, and make her detection certain if he 
 chanced to be awake ! My lords, I say that this is a plain invention, an 
 invention natural enough to come into the head of a person who lives 
 in a country where nightly robberies are committed. I will not say 
 that this witness is a person who had known more nearly that offence, 
 and the precautions taken by those who commit it; but he, at least, 
 was surrounded by adepts in the art, and we generally find in stories 
 of robbers, that identical particular inserted. The robber comes to 
 the bed of the lady, and looks with a candle near her face to ascer- 
 tain whether she is asleep. If she is asleep it is all well and safe; but 
 if she is awake, and might give the alarm, he does not care about 
 the alarm, and coolly retires. It is very wise and prudent in the 
 robber to take this precaution, to which he adds that of a dark-lantern. 
 But, for a person who is going to commit adultery in the next room, 
 whose face is as well known to the man in bed as any face that can 
 be shown, to go up to his bed-side with a candle, and not a dark- 
 lantern, in order to discover whether he is asleep or not, is a proceed- 
 ing altogether incredible. To what would not the simple fact of Her 
 Majesty having been seen in that room, under such circumstances 
 have exposed her? Would not the fact of being detected looking 
 in the face of Majocchi, have of itself condemned her? The tale is 
 most monstrous and incredible. But it is providentially and most 
 happily ordained, for the detection of guilt and the justification of 
 innocence, that such inventions are often thoughtlessly devised arid 
 carelessly put together; and, in this instance there has been but litile 
 caution used in putting together the materials which have been very 
 thoughtlessly cast. 
 
 Now, my lords, I wish, before I close my observations on these 
 stories, that I might recall to your lordships' attention what this wit- 
 ness has said on another point. He told you that Bergami began to 
 dine at the table of the Princess at Genoa, when is is notorious that he 
 did not begin to dine with her until some months afterwards. I might 
 recall to your lordships' attention that, in speaking of the night-scene 
 at Genoa, he does not recollect Vinescati, the courier, arriving: he 
 even says, as the thing is much mixed up with fiction, he had for-
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 93 
 
 gotten it, and he did not remember his arrival at all. " Do you re- 
 member at any time of the night knocking at the door of Bergami's 
 bed-room, and endeavoring to wake him?" " I do remember." 
 " Upon what occasion was that? For what purpose?" "It was in 
 the night when Vinescati came, and I went to knock." Then, recol- 
 lecting the contradiction, he said it was not the night Venescati arrived, 
 but the night thieves got into the house; and then he drops the courier 
 altogether. 
 
 But I come to what happened late in the day. Your lordships re- 
 collect the account this witness gave of his leaving the service of 
 Her Majesty, an account which contains as much gross and deliberate 
 falsehood as ever polluted the walls of a court of justice. And allow 
 me here, my lords, to observe, that where yon see one material part 
 of a person's evidence grossly and palpably false, it dispenses with 
 the necessity of going more into detail, and relieves us from the 
 necessity of proving him a perjurer throughout; the whole of his 
 evidence is discredited; nothing that falls from the lips of a perjured 
 man ought to be entertained; all must be rejected; my lords, in giving 
 you an account of his quitting the service of the Princess, the wit- 
 ness thought it necessary, in order to raise his character, I suppose, 
 to flourish about the cause of his leaving Her Royal Highness. He 
 denied that he had been dismissed by her. He said that he left 
 the service, because he did not like the bad people by whom she was 
 surrounded. This he said, for the double purpose of raising his own 
 credit, and debasing the Queen's and vilifying the society by which 
 she was surrounded. But, my lords, this story is false; and I will 
 show the falsehood from his own mouth. When a question was put 
 to him, " Did you apply to be taken back?" what was his answer ? 
 " I do not recollect." Here, my lords, you see how he defends and 
 protects himself; for if he had answered, No, he knew we might have 
 called a witness who would have convicted him at once. lie was 
 then asked, " Did you ever apply to Schiavini to make interest for 
 your being taken back?" lie answers, " Once I did." Now, a man 
 might have recollected that, after being told, and might innocently 
 have forgotten in answer to the first question; but then he would not 
 have immediately recollected all the circumstances; for, the moment 
 that string was touched, his recollection was entire, his forgetfulness 
 quitted him, and he told us the whole history of the transaction; and 
 a very material thing it is for your lordships to attend to. He said, 
 " Yes, yes," Si, ,yz, was his expression; " but it was in a sort of a joke, 
 " I made the application in joke." That may be so; but if he did 
 not make it in joke he has perjured himself; if he did make this ap- 
 plication in joke to what follows he must have answered, No. " Did 
 you, or did you not make repeated applications to Hieronimus also to 
 be taken back into her Royal Ilighness's service?" This could not 
 be all a joke; you could not have joked with several persons on the 
 same string. " Nun mi ricurdu" "this I do not remember." Now, 
 I say, my lords, that either this last " Nun mi ricordo" is gross and 
 wilful perjury, or the first story is gross and wilful perjury, that ho
 
 94 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 left the Queen from his horror of the bad people by whom she was 
 surrounded, and that he made his application to Schiavini in pure 
 joke. There is no way out of this dilemma. The two stories are 
 utterly inconsistent. But your lordships recollect the way in which 
 he told you that he never wished to go back to the service. It was 
 done with some flourish and figure. He said with some indignation, 
 " Rather than go to serve her Royal Highness on account of the per- 
 sons that are about her, I will go and eat grass." I ask your lord- 
 ships, is that the saying of a true or a false man, when he pretends 
 that he would rather eat grass than go back to a house where he 
 made one application which he pretends to have been a joke, and 
 afterwards will not swear he did not make several applications to 
 get back to the same bad house? My lords, here I say is developed 
 the whole mystery of Majocchi and his non mi ricordo. This was 
 his protection and his shelter. I say that rank falsehood appears on 
 the face of this part of the evidence, take it the one way or the 
 other; and I care not which of the two branches of the alternative is 
 adopted. 
 
 I now wish to call the attention of your lordships, for a moment, to 
 the next witnesses; but it shall only be for a moment; because I have 
 already anticipated, in great part, what I had to say of them; I mean 
 those well-paid swearers, the captain and the mate of the polacca. 
 First, as to the mate, there is something in the demeanor of a witness 
 more consonant to a candid and a true story, than the pertness with 
 which that person answered several questions; and all those who have 
 been accustomed to see witnesses in a court of justice know, that those 
 who are stating falsehoods are extremely apt to give flippant and im- 
 pertinent answers. The mate of the polacca is precisely a witness of 
 this kind. Upon being asked, " Was the little gun you spoke of, upon 
 the deck?" he answers, " On the deck; we could not carry it in our 
 pocket." I only mention this, because my learned friend the Solicitor- 
 general has said, that he is a witness of great credit. Again, when 
 asked, " How did you travel from Naples to Milan?" he answers," In 
 a carriage; I could not go on foot." I only state this to remind your 
 lordships of the manner of the witness, which I should not do, if he 
 had not been said to be a witness of the most perfectly correct de- 
 meanor on the present occasion. But I proceed to the substance of 
 his evidence: I will venture to say, that a better paid witness, a better 
 paid Italian, for any work or labor, has never yet come to your know- 
 ledge. He is pnid at the rate of 2000/. sterling a-year; he was the 
 mate in that voyage of a trading vessel in the Mediterranean, and he 
 is now the fourth part owner of a vessel upon his own account. So 
 that to give him a sum in proportion to what he makes when at home 
 to make it a compensation instead of a reward, according to the Right 
 Reverend Prelate's learned interpretation that vessel must earn 
 8000/. a-year; which is somewhat above an income of from sixteen 
 to eighteen thousand pounds in this country. There is not a ship- 
 owner in all Messina, that makes half the money by all the ships he 
 has of his own proper goods and chattels. In that country, a man of
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 95 
 
 two or three or four hundred pounds a-year is a rich man. Fifteen 
 hundred pounds a-year is a property possessed by none, except the 
 great nobility. Clear profits of SOOO/. a-year there! Their names 
 would resound over all Italy as the rich of the earth; and not a man 
 of consequence could have gone from this country to that, who would 
 not have tried to procure letters of recommendation to them. The 
 Cobbler of Messina has lived in history; but in his time he was not so 
 well known as these two paltry shippers would be, if, instead of dealing 
 out the instrument he did, these men kept their palaces and spent 
 their four thousand a-year. And this is his story, and if he does not 
 mean so much as this, so much the better in an other way; for then is 
 he wholly perjured. 
 
 My lords, the captain of the vessel, as might be expected, is paid at 
 a much higher rate than the mate. He is paid 2400/. a-year; he is 
 fed, lodged, and maintained; every expense is defrayed, and this put 
 into his pocket, and not for the loss of any profits. I have hitherto 
 been considering it as a compensation for the loss of his profits. But 
 his ship is not here; to use the mate's own mode of speech, he did not 
 bring it here in his pocket; though the owner comes to England, the 
 ship is employed in the Mediterranean, and earning her frieght; and 
 he is paid this, though he attempts to deny it he is paid this as 
 a recompense and not as a compensation. The same argument then 
 applies to the captain as to the mate, but in a greater degree, and I 
 shall not go through it. But, it appears there was a cause of quarrel 
 between the captain and the Princess of Wales. Pie tells you, with 
 some naivete, that what he had for himself, his mate, and the other 
 twenty men of his crew, and for all his trouble, was a sum considerably 
 less, about a fourth part less, than he receives now, for coming over 
 to swear in this business against his ancient freighter. But your lord- 
 ships recollect what he added to that. He said, " When we take on 
 board royal personages, we trust more to the uncertain than to the cer- 
 tain profits." This is a great truth, well known to many present, that 
 something certain is often stipulated for, but that something more is 
 often given by way of honorary and voluntary compensation. Then, 
 my lords, I only stop here for one moment, to remind your lordships, 
 that according to this, his expectation is not limited to what he gets, 
 namely, 2400/. a-year, for coming here to swear against the Queen; 
 but he says he has been employed by a royal person; and he tells your 
 lordships that the ascertained compensation bore no proportion to the 
 voluntary reward which he expected from her Majesty. How much 
 less then lias he he a right to limit the bounty of her illustrious hus- 
 band, or of the servants of His Majesty, who have brought him here, 
 if he serves them faithfully, if the case in his hands comes safe through, 
 and if no accident happens ! If he should succeed in all this, he would 
 then get what would make a mere joke of the 2-100/. a-year; though 
 that would be infinitely greater than any shipper ever earned by the 
 employment of his vessel in the Mediterranean Sea. 
 
 But independent of the hope of reward, there is another inducement 
 operating on the mind of this witness from another quarter. Is there
 
 96 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 no spite to gratify? The whole of his testimony, my lords, is bottomed 
 on revenge. I have a right to say this, because he has told me so 
 himself. He has distinctly sworn that he had a quarrel with Bergami, 
 the Queen's chamberlain, whose business it was to pay him the money; 
 and that he complained to his own ambassador, that Bergami had 
 kept back from him 1300/. which he claimed. What happened then? 
 " I have made some application, some demand. When I came here 
 last year, I gave a memorial to my ambassador, Count de Lndolph, 
 and I stated, that as I believed myself to have served the British go- 
 vernment, because I had had the honor of bearing the English flag, I 
 expected the present which I had not received; and on account of this 
 memorial which I gave to Count de Ludolph, the English govern- 
 ment have known me to be Vincenzo Gargiuolo of Naples." Now, 
 I mention it as a circumstance which may strike different minds in dif- 
 ferent ways, but as not immaterial in any view of this case, that the 
 only knowledge the prosecutor of this case has of this witness is, his 
 having made a complaint against the Queen and her chamberlain, for 
 not paying him 1300/. which he said they owed him. He added, 
 that he had been advised to go to London to see after that sum of 
 money. I warrant, you, my lords, he does not think lie is less likely 
 to see his way clearly towards the success of his claim, in consequence 
 of the evidence which he has given at your lordships' bar. 
 
 My lords, there are other matters in the evidence of these two men 
 which deserve the attention of your lordships. I think that a Prin- 
 cess of Wales on board a vessel, sitting upon a gun, with her arms in- 
 terwined with those of her menial servant, and sometimes kissing that 
 servant, is a circumstance not of such ordinary occurrence in the Medi- 
 terranean, as to make it likely that the captain or mate would forget 
 the most important particulars of it. Yet they do forget, or at least 
 they differ for I will not allow they forget they differ most mate- 
 rially in their history of this strange matter far more, I will venture 
 to say, than they would differ about the particulars of any ordinary 
 occurrence that really happened. The mate says, that the Qneen and 
 Bergami were sitting on a gun, and that they were supporting each 
 other. In the same page, he says afterwards, they were sitting near 
 the main-mast, the Princess sitting on Bergami's lap. Now, the dif- 
 ference between sitting on a gun and near the mainmast may strike 
 your lordships as not important. I state it, because the mate considers 
 it of importance; therefore, I conceive he has some motives for par- 
 ticularising it; he means to say, I place my accuracy on these details 
 which I give at my peril. Accordingly he says, that when he saw the 
 Queen on Bergami's knees, it was not on a gun, but on a bench near 
 the main-mast; and not one word about kissing do I see in the mate's 
 evidence. He forgets the most important part of the whole; for which 
 reason, your lordships will conclude with me, I think, that he does not 
 confirm the captain. The captain swears differently. He says "I 
 have seen Bergami sitting on a gun, and the Princess sitting on his 
 knees, and that they were kissing." But do they speak of the same 
 thing? Yes, if they are to be believed at all; for the captain says im-
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 97 
 
 mediately after, that the mate saw it as well as himself. The mate, 
 however, never says he saw it; and my learned friends did not dare 
 to ask him if he had ever seen it. The captain says, they saw it toge- 
 ther; yet when the men are brought to give their evidence and they 
 are brought immediately one after the other you see the consequence. 
 They totally differ in their account of the story, and differ in a way 
 clearly to show, that the story cannot be true. Now, what think your 
 lordships of this man's desiring you to believe of his expecting you 
 to believe that he was a man of such strictness of conduct, and his 
 mate so pure a youth, educated in that primitive, antediluvian Garden 
 of Eden, Naples or Messina, that when he saw a lady go near a man, 
 not touching, observe, but leaning over the place where he was re- 
 clined nothing indecorous, nothing improper, nothing even light, but 
 only leaning towards the place where he was reposing he imme- 
 diately desired the innocent youth to go away, because, beside being 
 his mate, and therefore, under his especial care in point of morals, by 
 the relation of master and mate, he was also his distant relation, and 
 therefore, by the ties of blood also, he had upon his conscience a re- 
 sponsibility for the purity of the sights which should pass before his 
 youthful eyes, and therefore he could not allow him to remain for a 
 moment near that part of the ship, where these two individuals were, 
 because they appeared to be approaching towards each other! Per- 
 haps there may be those who believe all this who think it a likely 
 account of the matter. Observe, my lords, he never says that the 
 Queen ordered them to go away, or that any order to that effect came 
 from Bergami. No. The guilty pair never interfered; they were 
 anxious that all the crew should see them; but the virtuous Gargiuolo, 
 reviving in the modern Mediterranean a system of morals far more 
 pure than ever ancient Ocean saw and smiled at, "cheered with the 
 sight," would not suffer his mate to see that which might happen, 
 when two persons, male and female, did not touch, but were only 
 near each other. My lords, there may be those who believe all this 
 I cannot answer for men's belief but this I am sure, that if any one 
 do not believe it, he must believe another thing; namely, that Gar- 
 giuolo the captain, and the mate Paturzo speak that which is not true. 
 There is no way out of this conclusion. Either you must believe that 
 the captain speaks the truth, when he gives this account of his mo- 
 tives or you must believe that it is false, and that it is gratuitously 
 false. But not gratuitous, as it respects his own character. lie means 
 to set himself up by it; to earn his money the better; and, if possible, 
 to impose upon some credulous minds by it. Perhaps he may have 
 succeeded the event will show in making more than that uncertain 
 gain the rate of which a man, when dealing with royalty, always in- 
 creases, and in improving his chance of obtaining the 1300/. for 
 whieh he has come over to this country. 
 
 My lords, one more statement of these men, and I have done with 
 
 them. Sec how well drilled they are! I hold them up as models of 
 
 well trained witnesses; I regard their perfect drilling as a perfect 
 
 study for those who may practise that art. I present them as highly 
 
 VOL. i. 9
 
 98 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 finished specimens of the art in its perfection; and no wonder they 
 are well accomplished; they are the best paid; and therefore they 
 ought to be the choice specimens of that art. Much money has 
 been laid out upon them, and their zeal has been in proportion to 
 the much they have received and the more they expect. See how 
 well they have been trained! But happily there are limits to this art, 
 as there are to all human inventions. If there were not, God pity 
 those who are attacked! God pity the innocent against whom the 
 mighty engine for tutoring witnesses, for manufacturing testimony 
 may be directed! They cannot perfectly get over the disadvantage 
 of not having access to hear the evidence of each other; but see, 
 when art can do it, how well it is done. The master and the mate 
 are evidently descendants, lineal descendants, of the Doctors of Bo- 
 logna. Whether their names are the same, or similar, like those of 
 Harry the Eighth's agent, and the chief Milan Commissioner, I 
 know not. I have not before me the hundred and ten names of 
 the Doctors; but that these are among their lineal descendants, no 
 man can doubt. They are afraid to have it thought for an instant 
 that they ever spoke to one another upon the subject of their evi- 
 dence. Intimate in all other respects; living together in the Magazine 
 of Evidence, the barracks of witnesses, in this neighborhood; sleep- 
 ing in the same room, supping together, breakfasting together, the 
 very morning before they came here, again meeting together the day 
 after the first had been examined and when the second was to come, 
 for any thing I know sleeping together the only subject on which 
 they never talked, in all the intimacy of master and mate, in all the 
 nearness of blood and connection, and entertaining an affection for 
 each other that would do honor to the nearest connection, and which 
 I wish some of the nearest connections, especially of a conjugal 
 kind, had the only subject, I say, upon which they never choose 
 to enter, is the subject of the inquiry which now occupies all other 
 men the only subject on which all other men save themselves alone 
 can converse! 
 
 My lords, this is not peculiar to these two witnesses, but the way 
 in which they tell it is peculiar, and is not marked on the part of the 
 gallant captain, by the judgment and skill which usually distinguish 
 him. " I am not a person," says he with indignation, " to state what 
 I am obliged to say in this room the subject is of such a nature 
 that it cannot be talked of." What subject? There is nothing so 
 frightful in this subject which you came to support, and which you 
 have witnessed. "No, no; but it would not be decent, it would 
 not be creditable, that I should tell to others all those things which 
 we say in this house, before these gentlemen, these lords." " Did 
 you ever say any thing to the mate upon it?" "Oh, never, never!" 
 " Did you tell Paturzo last night, or this morning, that it would not 
 be fit for you and Paturzo to talk about his examination of yesterday?" 
 "Yes upon this matter." 
 
 This brings me to say a word or two relative to a circumstance 
 in the character of all these recruits in the Cotton Garden depot. I
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 99 
 
 must say, I think that whatever injury this inquiry may do to the 
 highest and most illustrious persons however pregnant it may be 
 with every thing offensive to morals and to good taste whatever 
 mischiefs to the conduct of social life may arise, for some time to 
 come, from the disgusting details brought forth in the course of this 
 ill-omened proceeding to pollute English society; it must be matter 
 of comfort, that there is one spot on the face of the island, one little 
 land of Goshen, sacred from the squabbles which surround it, free 
 from the neighboring defilement, and that into this retired and pure 
 society, those subjects which offend the delicate, which alarm the ap- 
 prehensions of morality, which go so well nigh to contaminate the 
 morals of all classes of the community elsewhere, never, by any 
 mischance, penetrate; and strange to tell, my lords, that one little spot 
 is neither more nor less than Cotton Garden, in the vicinity of this 
 house, inhabited by all the host of foreign witnesses whose deposi- 
 tions have spread abroad all the impurity that appals the world ! 
 Let no man, then, suppose that the danger is so great as it has been 
 represented ; or that there is any accuracy in the statement, or 
 that there is any ground for the alarm founded upon it, that the 
 whole island is flooded with the indecencies which issued forth from 
 the green bag: for there is at least Cotton Garden, where the most 
 strictly modest matron may go, without feeling that if she carries 
 thither the most chaste virgin, that virgin's face will ever there be suf- 
 fused with a blush; for in that place and amongst the witnesses them- 
 selves amongst the agents of this plot amongst the contrivers of it 
 amongst those who appear before your lordships to give utterance 
 to the abominations of their own fancy amongst them, it turns out, 
 that there is never one whisper heard on any thing even remotely 
 connected with the subject which so much vitiates the mind and de- 
 bases, I will say, the reputation of this country every where else! 
 If your lordships choose to believe this, far be it from me to interrupt 
 an illusion so pleasing, even by giving it that name; for it is delight- 
 ful to have any such spot for the mind to repose upon. If you can 
 believe it do so in God's name! But if you do not believe it, I say, 
 as I said before, you must believe something else; if you do not 
 believe it, you must believe that all the witnesses who have said so, 
 and they are all those who are in that depot, are perjured over and 
 over again. 
 
 My lords, the course of my observations has now brought me to 
 personages of still greater importance in this case, than either the 
 captain or the mate, although my learned friend, the Solicitor-general, 
 has stated them to be witnesses of infinite importance I mean De- 
 mont and Sacchi; whom I trust I shall be excused for coupling 
 together, united, as they appear to be, between themselves by the 
 closest ties of friendship; resembling eacli other as they do, in all the 
 material particulars of their history, connected at least with the present 
 story; both living under the roof of the Queen, and enjoying her 
 bounty and protection; both reluctantly dismissed; both soliciting to be 
 taken back into place and favor; knit together since by the same ties
 
 100 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 of country and friendship; living together in great intimacy, both in 
 their native mountains of Switzerland, and afterwards upon their 
 arrival in this country; remaining in this country about the same 
 period of time, and that above twelve months; employing themselves 
 during those twelve months, in the way best adapted to fit them for 
 the business in which they were to be employed, by obtaining access 
 to our best classic writers and attaining a knowledge of onr language, 
 though they modestly brag not of their proficiency in this respect, but 
 choose to avail themselves of the assistance of an interpreter, which 
 has this advantage, that it gives them the opportunity of preparing 
 an answer to the question which they understand while the interpreter 
 all unheeded, is performing his superfluous part of furnishing them 
 with a needless translation. 
 
 My lords, the other points of resemblance are so many, that I shall 
 not detail them; for your lordships will see them when I come to 
 enter into the particulars of the evidence. But I wish, in the first 
 place, to remind you what sort of a person Mademoiselle Demont 
 describes herself to be; because it signifies very little in comparison 
 what we shall succeed in showing her to be; I had rather take her 
 own account of herself; I cannot wish for more; and I am sure she 
 could give us no less, with any ordinary regard to her own safety; 
 for as to regard of truth, I say nothing about it upon this occasion. 
 She is a person, it seems, of a romantic disposition naturally implant- 
 ed in her mind, and which has been much improved by her inter- 
 course with the world. She is an enemy to marriage, as she says in 
 her letters. She does not like mankind in the abstract and yet 
 "potius arnica omnibus qiiam ullius inimca" I think we may 
 say, from some things which came out afterwards mankind in the 
 abstract she rather objects to; but she makes an exception in favor of 
 such a near friend as Sacchi, whom she dignifies by the title of an 
 Italian gentleman; though he, ungrateful man, to justify her dislike 
 of mankind, will not return the compliment, by acknowledging her 
 to be a countess! But this Italian gentleman, whom she will not 
 acknowledge to be a servant, came over with her. Marriage, she 
 says, she does not like. She loves sweet liberty; and in the pursuit 
 of this "mountain nymph" over her native hills and in this country, 
 your lordships see the sort of company in which she is landed, namely, 
 that of Mr. Sacchi, not to mention Krouse the messenger, who goes 
 over to fetch her, and brings the reluctant fair to appear as a witness 
 upon the present occasion. 
 
 But far be it from me, my lords, to deny the accomplishments of 
 this person. Very far indeed from me be any such thought. She is 
 the most perfect specimen she is the most finished model of the 
 complete watiing-maid, that I believe the world has ever seen in 
 actual existence. I believe none of the writers of her own country, 
 or of ours which she is now studying, will give a more complete 
 specimen neither Moliere, nor Le Sage, nor our own Congreve or 
 Gibber than that which she has given, without any assistance, in 
 this house. I cannot deny her the greatest readiness of invention;
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 101 
 
 that she is at no loss in writing I cannot dispute; I must admit, too, 
 that she is not at all sterile in her descriptions upon those subjects on 
 which she enters, until she is brought into contrast with her own 
 letters, and until my learned friend Mr. Williams begins his some- 
 what unceremonious, not to say inconvenient, cross-examination. I 
 cannot deny that she possesses a caution which would do honor to 
 the Machiavel of waiting-maids; that she is gifted with great circum- 
 spection; that she possesses infinite nimbleness in devising excuses, 
 and adjusting one part of her evidence with another; that all her shifts 
 and her doublings were well devised, and that if the thing could 
 have been done which it cannot by the eternal laws of truth she 
 would have succeeded in blinding and deluding her hearers. She 
 showed great art in endeavoring to reconcile the stories she had told, 
 with the contents of the letters, which were produced; which letters 
 she had not forgotten, though she did not know that they were still in 
 existence, and ready to be produced against her. Had she been 
 aware of their preservation, and had her patrons been aware of their 
 contents, your lordships would never have seen her face here; just as 
 you have not seen the faces of some seventy other witnesses, whom 
 they dare not call, and whom they have shipped off like so much tainted 
 meat, or useless live lumber, for their native country. Far be it 
 from me, then, to deny the accomplishments of this person! Nor 
 do I deny that she is a great adept at intrigue; which indeed, she 
 picques herself upon. She would never forgive me if I refused her 
 that merit. Her constant practice is to deal in double entcndrcs; her 
 friend Sacchi I crave her pardon, Mr. Sacchi does the same; she in 
 her letters to her sister; and he in his conversation with Mr. Marietti. 
 So that it is impossible for us, and may be very convenient for them, 
 to know what they mean. In short to them may be applied what 
 was said of old of a whole people: " Tribuo illis literas; do multarum 
 artium disciplinam; non adimo scrmonis leporern ingeniorum acumen, 
 dicendi copiavn; deniqtie etiam, si qua sibi alia summit non repugno; 
 testimoniorum religionem ct fidem nunquam ista natio coluit: totins- 
 que hujnsce rei quoe sit vis, quce auctoritas, quod pondus ignorant." 
 I hear her candor praised by some persons, and why? Because 
 she admits she was turned off for a story which proved to be false. 
 I hear her praised too for her other admissions; and what were those? 
 When asked if she was sincere in such and such praises which she 
 bestowed upon her Majesty, she said in some of them she was, but 
 not in all; in a part she was, but not in the whole. "Were you in 
 want of money?" " Never."" Did you never write to your sister, 
 ' I am in want of money?' ' " It may be so; but if I did so it was 
 not true." So there is no connection in rcntm natura, in this per- 
 son's case, between the thing being true and her saying it, nor any 
 opposition in this person's mind, in a thing being downright false- 
 hood, and her saying and writing it. Truly, this is her own account 
 of herself; and yet to my no small astonishment, I have heard her praised 
 for the candor with which she gave this account, by persons of mode- 
 rate capacity. 
 
 9*
 
 102 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 My lords, I need hardly remind you I need hardly remind any 
 person whose capacity is above the meanest I need hardly tell 
 any man who is not fit to be turned out in the fields among those 
 animals whom he sometimes abuses by using I need hardly say to 
 any one above this level, See what is the effect of this! Will it be 
 said " Be it that she uses double entendres, that she tells falsehoods 
 freely to gain her own ends; yet the candor of making these ad- 
 missions, the ingenuousness of youth with which she informs you that 
 she tells falsehoods by wholesale, so that she cannot be depended 
 upon for a word she utters, is a blandishment more seductive than all 
 her personal charms; it binds us to her, though not her personal 
 lovers; and we open our eyes to all her tales because she is so engag- 
 ing a liar, and acknowledges, with so much readiness, that there is 
 not a word of truth in her whole story?" My lords, in any body 
 but a witness you may be pleased with such candor; in any one ex- 
 cept one whose credit depends upon the truth of her story. You may 
 say to any other person, " Poor, dear, innocent Swiss Shepherdess, 
 how ingenuous thy mind!" but to a witness! I never before heard 
 so strange a reason for giving a witness credit as citing the candor 
 with which she admits that she is not to be believed. 
 
 My lords, look at her letters look at her explanations of them. 
 I will not go through them in detail; but I will tell you and the 
 more you look at them, the more you will be convinced of this truth 
 that her explanations of them are impossible that the double 
 entendres do not fit that the interpretations she gives do not tally 
 with what appears in black and white. Her gloss does not suit her 
 text the two are totally inconsistent; and the clear contents of the 
 four corners of the document show that what she stated on her oath 
 is untrue. The letters themselves want nothing to make them per- 
 fectly intelligible. But her key does not fit her cypher. The matter 
 only becomes doubtful as she envelopes it in falsehood, by the inven- 
 tions of the moment, by her extempore endeavors to get rid of the 
 indisputable meaning of the words in her own hand-writing. My 
 lords, a plain man knows how to deal with these things. He does 
 not entangle himself in the miserable webs which this dirty working 
 creature attempts to throw around him; he goes straight on, if he be 
 a wise and an honest man, to see justice done to the object of a perjur- 
 ed conspiracy; he goes straight through, and believes those, and those 
 only, who show themselves to be worthy of credit; and I pray to 
 God, that your lordships may so believe, and not stand an exception, 
 a solitary exception, to the conduct of all the rest of mankind! I 
 hope your lordships will believe this woman to have been sincere, 
 when she says that the Queen was good and innocent; that she then 
 spoke the language of her heart in the eloquence of her feelings, and 
 has only since been corrupted, when, upon a refusal to take her back 
 into that service where she had never received aught but favor and 
 kindness, she has fallen into the hands of the other conspirators against 
 the honor of her illustrious mistress. 
 
 I forgot, my lords, in admitting the qualities of this female, to
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 103 
 
 make another concession. She is kindly attached to her own sister. 
 She loves her with a sincere affection. She tells you so. Her prin- 
 ciple in her conduct upon this occasion, if she is believed, is anxiety 
 for her service and interest. Now, I do not believe the story which 
 follows; and it is not I who am calumniating Demont, because I am 
 taking her own account of herself, which I do not believe. Mine is 
 a plain story. She represents herself as affectionate towards that 
 sister, heartily attached to her interest, only anxious to promote it 
 her sister just coming into the world at the innocent age af fifteen 
 and that she does all she can to obtain a place for that sister in a 
 house which, if you believe a tittle of what she told you, ought to 
 have the name, not of a palace, as the Attorney-general says, but 
 of a brothel. She has two sisters, indeed, and she is equally attached 
 to both. She describes the letter as written immediately after leaving 
 those scenes, immediately after having been unwillingly turned out 
 of this brothel unwilling to leave it she says she was, although she 
 admits that (differing from her sisters in that respect) she was rich 
 and they were poor, and was therefore under no necessity of submit- 
 ting to that contamination, which no necessity ought to induce an 
 honest woman to endure. But though she was under no necessity, 
 the honest Swiss chamber-maid balances the profits of her place 
 against its disgrace; acting upon the principle of the Roman emperor, 
 who, so that he raised a tax, was not over anxious as to the materials 
 from which the filthy imposition was obtained. Though she admits 
 that the house is worse than an ordinary brothel, and avows that she 
 loves her sisters, the elder as well as the younger, she is occupied for 
 six months after she leaves it, first, in endeavoring to obtain for the 
 virgin of fifeen a place in order to initiate her there; and next, to keep 
 the maturer girl of seventeen in possession of so comfortable and so 
 creditable a situation. Such is Demont by her own account! I do 
 not believe her so bad I believe no woman so bad as she now 
 finds it necessary to tell you she is, because, unexpectedly, we bring 
 out her own hand-writing against her. I believe every word of her 
 letter to be sincere. I believe she did right and well in wishing to 
 retain her own place, to keep one sister there, and then to obtain em- 
 ployment for another; but I also believe, that having been driven 
 from thence, and disappointed in her hopes of being taken back, she 
 invented the story she has now told, not knowing that these letters 
 were in existence and would be brought in evidence against her. 
 But she was sworn in Lincoln's-Inn Fields before she knew of these 
 letters being in existence. Had she known of this fact, I have 
 no doubt she would rather have foregone all the advantages she has 
 reaped, from coming forward as a leading witness in the plot against 
 the Queen, than have made her apperaance at your lordships' bar. 
 
 So much for this lady. I now come to that amiable gentleman, 
 Mr. Sacchi. And 1 observe, rny lords, with great satisfaction, a most 
 pleasing symptom of liberality in the present times, as exhibited in 
 the liberal reception which this witness has met with among your 
 lordships, and in the pains which have been taken, both by those
 
 104 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 who produced him, and those who afterwards examined him, to in 
 crease the estimation in which it was wished that he should be held. 
 It shows how the age is improving. It shows how fast vulgar pre- 
 judices against Buonaparte and the French nation are wearing away. 
 I well remember the time when nobody would have been very well 
 pleased to bring forward as a principal witness in a case of any kind, 
 a man whose recommendation was, that he had been a soldier of 
 Buonaparte, that he had served in any of his campaigns, and had been 
 promoted by the Corsican adventurer, the daring usurper, the unprin- 
 cipled revolutionary chief, as it was the fashion so lavishly to call 
 him. Nevertheless, now that a witness against the Queen has this 
 merit to boast of, it is brought forward, as if we had never heard 
 anything, as if we had never been sickened by whole volumes of 
 abuse which had been poured forth, for the purpose of showing, that 
 the very name of a French hussar, particularly if he happened to be 
 a servant of Buonaparte, was exactly the name for everything most 
 profligate and abandoned. Now, my lords, without having ever 
 been one of those who approved of the excess to which this abuse 
 was carried, on the part of ourselves and of our neighbors, I never- 
 theless cannot help thinking, that a cast-off servant, a courier who 
 pretends to be a gentleman, and now has his servant to wait upon 
 him, and who says, " Thank God, I was always in easy circumstan- 
 ces," though he was once living on the wages of a common courier; 
 who can only say, that he was a common soldier in the French army, 
 and was refused a- commission in the Swiss army, but was offered 
 the place of a sergeant would, a few years ago, have stood very 
 little chance of mending his credit by this last adjunct. But this is 
 my least objection to Sacchi. I must, indeed, be allowed to say, that 
 the fact of such men having bravery enough to induce their masters 
 to give them a pair of colors, is not the best positive proof of their 
 being the most sincere and the most scrupulous of mankind. But look, 
 my lords, at the account you have of him from himself. He, too, deals 
 in double entendres. He has gone by three whole names and a 
 diminutive two of them we know, and the third we do not know; 
 but by three names and a half has he gone. When he came to this 
 country he began his double entendres as soon as he came in contact 
 with his beloved Demont. He told two double entendres if I may 
 use four syllables instead of the shorter Saxon word. For if men 
 will do this frequently and continually if they will do it for a great 
 object they get into the habit of doing it for no object, but mere sport 
 and playfulness. He tells first this double entendre, " that he had 
 come in the service of a Spanish family." Then he tells another, 
 that " he had a law-suit," we have never heard what that was, 
 nor anything more about it that he came over in consequence 
 of "a law-suit, a process with her Royal Highness." How, 
 then, did he get into the situation in which he is now living with 
 his own servant, seeing that he was so sorry at being turned away 
 from the service of the Queen, where he was first employed at the 
 lowest wages of a courier, and afterwards as a poor equerry? My
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 105 
 
 lords, you must believe that he lias got money nobody knows whence, 
 or you must disbelieve his story altogether. 
 
 But there is another similarity between Sacchi and Demont. He 
 is asked, " How much money had you in your name at your banker's 
 at Lausanne?" He answers, " Fifty louis." " Will you swear that 
 you had not more than that at one time at that banker's?" " I had 
 no more than those fifty louis." " Will you swear you never had 
 a credit which empowered you to draw upon that banker for a larger 
 sum than this?" " I never dad." " Have you never represented that 
 you had a [arger sum or a greater credit?" " I do not remember to 
 have said." Suppose any of your lordships were asked to speak to 
 a fact, and were to say " Positively not," "most certainly not," 
 " I know it is not so," nobody would dare to put the next question 
 to you at least I know very few of your lordships to whom they 
 dare to put it " Did you ever say so?" It could only be put to any 
 one of your lordships in joke, or in consequence of the greatest 
 familiarity subsisting between the parties; for you had answered 
 substantially that question before. If you area man to be be- 
 lieved on your oath, have you not answered the question whether 
 you ever told any person you had more at your banker's by saying 
 you know you had no more at your banker's? If you had no 
 more at your banker's you never could have said that you had 
 more; for if you had, you would have been guilty of what Sacchi 
 calls a double entendre. But not so with Sacchi, or whatever his 
 names, great or small may be " I may have done so; I cannot 
 swear when I am in doubt." The same as to his letters. He was 
 asked, " Did you ever represent to any person, after you had left the 
 service of Her Royal Highness, that you were in a destitute condi- 
 tion?" " Never." " Did you ever entreat any person of Her Royal 
 Highness's household to have compassion on your dreadful situation, 
 after you had left Her Royal Highness?" " I have never been in a 
 dreadful situation." " Did you ever represent," there I was stopped 
 " Did you ever say," but he had heard all the argument about 
 representing ' Did you ever say to any person that your conduct 
 towards Her Royal Highness was liable to the charge of ingratitude 
 with respect to a generous benefactor?" "Never." "Will you 
 swear that you never intreatcd any one of the suite of Her Royal 
 Highness, after you had left her service, to take compassion on your 
 situation?" " It may be." " Is that your hand-writing?" a letter 
 being put into his hands " It is." " Is that your hand-writing?" 
 another letter being put into his hands " It is." Now, in these letters 
 he has taxed himself with ingratitude in the plainest words. Luckily, 
 he had forgotten those letters. Would any of your lordships shelter 
 yourselves under such a despicable pretext as to say, " Oh! I did not 
 say it, I wrote it?" Litera scriplu ma net Your lordships shall sec 
 the letters. 
 
 But you will recollect what passed afterwards; for I now come to 
 a providential accident, if I may employ such contradictory terms, in 
 compliance with the common use of them; I now come to an accident, 
 but which I call an interposition in favor of innocence, which is
 
 106 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 always the care of Providence. Sacchi was asked by my learned 
 friend, the Attorney-General, " You have stated, that when you came 
 to this country, you assumed the name of Milani; what was the 
 reason why you assumed that name?" To which he answered, " I 
 took this name on account of the tumult (tumulto) which had taken 
 place, and of the danger I should have run if I had come under my 
 own name, knowing that I should have been known." "When 
 was it that you 'assumed the name by which you now go?" " It was 
 immediately after the affair that happened at Dover." Now, luckily, 
 he had forgotten the date; happily he did not recollect, that he came 
 over to this country in July in the year 1819, and that the tumult at 
 Dover happened in July 1S20. These, my lords, are the providential 
 circumstances by which conspiracies are detected; and but for which, 
 every one of you may be their victims to-morrow. Now, I call upon 
 your lordships to see how the witness gets out of this. After a short 
 interval in the examination, you will find in page 459 of the printed 
 minutes, that which I will read for .the sake of connection; and I do 
 it the more freely, because it is the last quotation with which I shall 
 trouble you from this evidence. In answer to a question put to him 
 by the Attorney-general, Sacchi says, " I took this name on account 
 of the tumult which had taken place, and of the danger I should 
 have run if I had come under my own name, knowing that I should 
 have been known." " When did you assume the name by which 
 you now go?" Then he instantly recollects " It was immediately 
 after the affair that happened at Dover." The name he now goes by, 
 he assumed since the affair at Dover; the name of Milani he assumed 
 a year before at Paris. My learned friend the Attorney-general, 
 leaves him there, concluding, from his experience of these matters, 
 that he would only make bad worse by going on. But one of your 
 lordships took it up; and if there ever was a specimen of shifting 
 and beating about the bush, to shelter a mortal from an un- 
 lucky scrape arising out of a false tale, here you had it. The man- 
 ner in which it was all spoken the confusion, the embarrassment, 
 the perplexity I cannot represent. I trust your lordships remember 
 it. But enough remains upon the record, and by that I should be 
 willing to try the credit of Sacchi as a witness. " Had you ever gone 
 by the name of Milani before you came to England?" " I took this 
 name in Paris." " At what time, in what year, did you take that 
 name in Paris?" " Four or five days before I set out for England." 
 "When was that?" " In the month of July last year."" What 
 was your motive for taking that name at that time in Paris?" " As 
 I knew that I was known in London by my own name, I endeavored 
 to shelter myself against any inconvenience that might happen to 
 me." Not a word about what had happened to others! " What 
 tumult had happened at that time that induced you to take that name?" 
 There is no more getting him out of the potential mood into the 
 past tense, than there is getting him out of knavery into honesty. 
 " What tumult had happened at that time that induced you to take 
 that name?" " I was warned that the witnesses against the Queen 
 might run some risk if they were known" forgetting or wish-
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 107 
 
 ing to slur over, that he had used the word *' had," and wishing 
 to substitute in its stead another tense. " Had you been informed 
 that they had actually run any risk?" " They had not run any risk 
 then." Then what was the "tumult" which he had spoken of be- 
 fore? The most favorable opportunity is then given him which an 
 honest witness could possibly desire, of correcting himself, and of 
 explaining the whole tact an opportunity which counsel might not 
 have been disposed to allow, but which the house very properly gave 
 him. The former questions and answers are read over to the witness, 
 and he is desired to reconcile and explain them. But, with all those 
 advantages, observe, my lords, the lameness of the pace at which he 
 hobbles off; for on the manner of doing a thing as much may depend 
 as upon the thing done. The former question and answer being read 
 from the minutes, he is asked this question. " Having stated in a 
 former answer that you changed your name to that of Milani in con- 
 sequence of a tumult that had happened, what did you mean by that 
 statement?" " Whilst 1 was at Paris a gentleman came, accompanied 
 by the courier Krouse" who had been named before " and the only 
 time I saw him; and he" not Krouse, who might have been called, 
 but the gentleman who is not named u he told me that it would be 
 necessary to change my name" a kind man, though unknown; more 
 kind than many we know better " because it would be dangerous 
 to come to England under my own name, as I had told him" and 
 these are inventions after the first part of the sentence " had told 
 him I was known in England under my own name; and that already 
 something had happened on this account; not on my account, but on 
 account of other people." " Did he tell you that a tumult had 
 taken place?" now he is obliged to say something about a tumult, 
 being led to it by the reading of the question. " He told me some 
 tumult, some disorder." " On what occasion did he say that tumult 
 had taken place?" " He told me nothing else." " You are under- 
 stood to say it was with respect to other persons; what did you 
 mean by other persons?" " He meant to say that some disorder had 
 already happened, in regard to other persons for similar causes." 
 " What do you mean by similar causes." Now, I never saw a wit- 
 ness who was brought into a corner by such a question, who did not 
 answer as this man has done " I have repeated what that gentleman 
 told me." " Did you understand that it was with respect to wit- 
 nesses who had come to give evidence in respect to the Queen?" " I 
 believe it was for this object." < Did you know that any witnesses 
 had at that time come over to give evidence in the cause of the Queen." 
 " I did not know with certainty, but in the same way I was coming 
 I might imagine" the potential mood again " that some other peo- 
 ple might have already come." And there I leave him. I do not 
 deny th;it he might imagine this or any thing else. I do not deny 
 that oihur persons might have come as he was coming. I admit it 
 to be possible. Bui what I deny is, that any person could have told 
 him that which he says he was told. That he may have invented 
 all this here, when he was pressed from an unexpected quarter, I
 
 108 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 readily admit to be possible; but that an unknown gentleman 
 should have accompanied the well-known Krouse to Paris, should 
 have told him a pure fiction of the brain, which no man could have 
 dreamt of a year age, is as utterly impossible as that a man should 
 by chance have written the Iliad. My lords, only see how this 
 stands; for I am afraid you do not feel it with the force which belongs 
 to it. We now all talk of the tumult at Dover, and the risk to which 
 the witnesses were exposed, with familiarity, because they are matters 
 of notoriety. But carry yourselves back to July 1819 Who of us 
 all, even in his most fanciful mood, ever dreamt of any one part of 
 that scene which has taken place any part of what we know, or of 
 those consequences which we shall unfortunately never live not to 
 know, have followed from these proceedings a tumult in conse- 
 quence of the arrival of flocks of witnesses coming, and those regu- 
 larly insulted, because witnesses in the Queen's cause? All this is 
 mighty familiar with us now. But go back, my lords, I say, to July 
 1819. Would any man then have suspected it? I say it was an 
 invention by the witness, to cover his retreat from the position into 
 which he had been unwarily entrapped; and that in the month of July 
 1819, no man ever told him, or could have ever told him, that any tu- 
 mult had taken place, or that any witnesses had been exposed to insult. 
 My lords, it is only by comparisons like these that perjury can be 
 detected, and conspiracies defeated. And this leads me to remark, 
 that if you defeat a conspiracy by showing perjury, or untrue swearing 
 and prevarication, on points however collateral or trifling, there is an 
 end of the credit due to the witness, and a failure of the proof of the 
 conspiracy on the main points, though you should have left them un- 
 touched, which, however, is not the case here. But with respect to 
 the witness Sacchi, I may as well now mention that part of the story 
 which he and Rastelli, a turned-off courier like himself, had agreed in 
 trumping up; because, however disgusting, however offensive, the 
 slightest allusion to it, or the recollection of it, may be, I am sure your 
 lordships will see that I cannot avoid reference to it, and comment 
 upon it. Do your lordships think it very likely that any woman I 
 might almost say any miserable person who gained her livelihood by 
 prostitution would do that thing openly, in the face of day, with a 
 menial servant four yards from her, without the slightest covering or 
 screen, which Rastelli tells you the Queen did openly, in the neigh- 
 borhood of the Villa d'Este? Do you believe that with the knowledge 
 that a courier was travelling on one side of the carriage, with the cer- 
 tainty that if surprised asleep, that courier might open the curtain, (for 
 his story is, that he always did so,) do you believe that, with the ruin 
 staring her in the face to which such a discovery would expose her 
 by blasting her character even amongst the most abandoned of her sex 
 any living person would go to sleep in the position described by Sacchi 
 as that in which the Queen and her chamberlain were found by him in 
 the morning asleep in the carriage? But your lorships' credulity must 
 be stretched yet many degrees; for if you should have expanded it so, 
 as to take in the belief, that such a thing happened once, it will be no-
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE 109 
 
 thing compared with what Sacchi has occasion for, in order to be 
 credited; you must stretch your credulity yet many degrees wider, in 
 crder to believe his story and if you do not believe the whole, you 
 can believe no part of it. Tin's, he said, was the habitual, constant 
 practice it happened again and again and he himself saw the self- 
 same thing several times. I appeal to your lordships Is this probable? 
 Is it in the common course of things, even with the most profligate 
 and abandoned women, the women who are a disgrace to their sex? 
 I say, unless yon believe the parlies to be absolutely insane, there is 
 no accounting for such conduct. 
 
 My lords, there is an impossibility, I think, physically, in the story 
 which Sacchi tells, at a time when the carriage was going at the rate 
 of nine or ten miles an hour, over such roads as we know are found 
 in that part of Italy, with two hands placed across each other, while 
 the parties are fast asleep, and without any power over their limbs. 
 To overcome this difficulty would, I think, have required the testimony 
 of philosophers who had made experiments. And yet we are called 
 upon to believe this on the evidence of Sacchi, such as he has described 
 himself to be, but who has given you no other description of the car- 
 riage, except that there were curtains to it. What if it be an English 
 carriage, with glasses and spring blinds! What, if I show your lord- 
 ships, by evidence, that it was an English carriage, furnished with 
 glasses and with spring blinds? And even if the glass were down, 
 which is not very likely in the night, how was he to open the curtain 
 without putting his hand in to touch the spring, which lie does not say 
 that he did? What if I should prove that Sacchi was not the courier 
 who went that journey, but that it was another courier, of whom you 
 shall hear more. But I contend that it is unnecessary for rne to prove 
 this. I deny that I am called upon to prove this. The opposite side 
 had plenty of witnesses to establish their case, if established it could 
 have been. They had abundance of cast-off servants; and if cast-off 
 servants would not answer their purpose, they had the servants now 
 in the employment of Her Majesty. Now, why did they not call 
 them? Again and again let me entreat of your lordships never to lose 
 sight of this fact for it is a main, if not the cardinal point in this case 
 the accuser is not ever, or upon any account, to be excused from 
 making out his case. He has no right to put it upon the accused to 
 call witnesses to prove herself innocent, seeing that it is the business 
 of the accuser, by good evidence, whenccsoever it may be drawn, to 
 prove the guilt. 
 
 But was there any other person in the carriage while this scene was 
 going on? " Non mi ricordo" was the answer of Sacchi, adopting the 
 well-known language of the justly celebrated Majocchi. Now ob- 
 serve, my lords, the caution of this answer. That question did not 
 come upon him by surprise. " I shall be asked," thought ho, " whe- 
 ther there was any body else in the carriage. If I say ihcre was any 
 body there, nobody will believe it to have happened. If I say nobody 
 was there, and it turns out that somebody was there, this will destroy 
 my testimony, and therefore I must say, I do not remember." But 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 110 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 he shall not stay there. In that lurking-place he shall not abide. I 
 will drag him out. The first remark naturally would be " This 
 could not have taken place when any person was by; there must have 
 been nobody else there." My lords, there ivas somebody else there, 
 as I will prove to your lordships, during the whole of the journey. In 
 the next place, after a person has witnessed such a scene as this, and 
 that person a servant, is it very likely that, from that moment for- 
 ward, his lips should be hermetically sealed? that he should never 
 dream of confiding it to the easy ear, the willing ear, of his tender and 
 gentle and soft friend Demont? That he should enjoy the intimate 
 and delightful intercourse of her society for months, both abroad and 
 in this country, without talking of this, from a delicacy, I have no 
 doubt, in their intercourse, far above that of all other pairs? He was 
 aware that some had split upon a rock by saying that they had never 
 told their story to any one until they told it at Milan boatmen, ma- 
 sons, carvers, gilders, waiters all the witnesses brought from Lom- 
 bardy. But he did not' choose to say so. He had, by your lordships' 
 kind permission, seen the evidence taken at your bar, and had studied 
 it, knowing, as he does, the English language. He did not, therefore, 
 choose to say, " I had told it to no one," but thought it more safe to 
 say, " I had told it to people, though I cannot name one of them now." 
 I say if it is clear, that such a thing could not pass and be seen without 
 the eye-witness telling it again, it is just as clear, that the eye-witness 
 could not tell it again, without well recollecting to whom he had so 
 told it. 
 
 My lords, as to the witness Kress and her story at Carlsrnhe, I have 
 only to add, that it is physically impossible it could have happened, 
 inasmuch as she says she well remembers it was after the first night 
 they arrived at the inn. She remembers that by the circumstance of 
 her having been called in one morning at breakfast 
 
 [At this stage of the speech the house adjourned, and next day, 
 (October 4th) Mr. Brougham, resumed.] 
 
 How comes it to pass, my lords, that with no want of care in the 
 preparation of this case; with the greatest display of skill and ma- 
 nagement in all the parts of the preparation; with boundless resources 
 of all sorts, to bring these faculties into play; there yet should be 
 one deficiency so remarkable, that even upon the names of the wit- 
 nesses being pronounced, it must strike every observer I mean, the 
 total want of balance between the different countries from which the 
 evidence is brought, and the unfairness shown towards some great 
 nations, contrasted so manifestly with the infinite attention paid to 
 others; so that while the Italian States, from the greatest to the petti- 
 est, are represented on the present occasion by numberless deputies, 
 I will not say of all ranks but of all ranks below the lowest of 
 the middle orders when you come across the Alps, you find Swit- 
 zerland, the whole Helvetic League, appearing in the person of a 
 single nyrnph, and the whole circle of the Germanic Empire, embo- 
 died in the personage of one waiting-maid at an inn that from 
 Vienna, the capital of the whole country, nobody appears at all that
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. Ill 
 
 from none of the other resting places of Her Majesty, in her tour 
 through her native land, docs a single delegate arrive lhat from none 
 of her abiding places there, least of all from the spot of her nativity, 
 where she was best known, is one deputy to be seen and that, in 
 fact every thing on this side the Alps is to be found in the person of 
 one chamber-maid, or cellar-maid, or assistant to the cellar-man or 
 drawer for in grave quarters doubts were raised in which of these 
 capacities this Germanic representative was to be regarded. But, 
 whatever doubt we might entertain as to her quality, with respect to 
 her number there is no doubt; she is assuredly the one, single, indi- 
 vidual person from that portion of the world, and save and except 
 the Swiss maid, she is the one single individual of all the company 
 who is not Italian. I beg your lordships' pardon, there are two grand 
 exceptions, but they are my witnesses, not my learned friend's, and I 
 reserve them to open my case withal. 
 
 My lords, I now come to call your attention to this single German 
 individual who appears before you, in proceeding to deal with whom, 
 I was kindly interrupted by the attention of your lordships to the 
 convenience of the parties yesterday. And here, as upon former 
 occasions, I find myself obliged to have recourse to the witness her- 
 self, for the description of her own qualifications. She knows them 
 best; she cannot be said to bear an unfavorable testimony, for except- 
 ing always the single instance of the Queen as shown forth against 
 her here, there never yet was known any person extremely anxious 
 to fabricate evidence against herself. Now Kress, to take her from 
 her earlier years, appears by her own account to have embraced at 
 the tenderest age the reputable, the unsuspicious, the unexposed office 
 of a chamber-maid at a little German inn. If your lordships will 
 calculate from the number of years which she mentions back to the 
 time to which her evidence applies, you will find she was just turned 
 of thirteen years when she first became such a chamber-maid at the 
 inn where she was afterwards found. The other places in which she 
 served, it is not quite so easy to discover; but still there is no very 
 great difficulty, and any little impediment in the way of our research 
 into this part of her history is removed by a little attention to what 
 the object is of the person who alone creates that difficulty, and 
 to the motives with which it is thrown in our way. I make Kress 
 herself her own biographer; for she tells you she was in other places 
 what places? Mr. So and So. " Mr. Marwey what was he?" 
 " I was as his servant." She tries to sink, until pressed, what 
 the particular occupation of the master was, and what the particu- 
 lar capacity of herself in his service; and then it comes out that in 
 all the instances, without one exception, in which she had a place, 
 unless when employed in the laundry of the palace of Baden, she 
 was in all those cases in an inn, and in no other kind of house. 
 However often she may have changed her service, she never has 
 changed her station. 
 
 My lords, she lets us a little more into her history afterwards, nnd 
 into the nature of her pretensions to credit before your lordships.
 
 112 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 First, we find in what manner she was induced to give her evidence; 
 and I do intreat your attention to it, because it shows, that if there 
 be any want of witnesses here, particularly from Germany, it is 
 from no lack of agency on the part of those who were preparing 
 the case against the Queen; for the agents in Germany are found in 
 their accustomed number, with their usual activity, and with the full 
 command of their ordinary resources. And I must say, that reflect- 
 ing upon the Milan Commission as an Englishman, and recollecting 
 that the German agents are not our countrymen, I feel some satisfac- 
 tion that there was a greater degree of impropriety shown in the 
 conduct of the German agents than we have ever imputed to any one 
 beyond the Alps. I introduce to your lordships fearlessly, in support 
 of this proposition, Baron Grimm, the minister of Wurtemberg, the 
 throne of which has been long filled by the Princess Royal of Eng- 
 land. But I trace his connection with the parties in this prosecution. 
 He and a person named Reden, (which Reden succeeded Baron 
 Ompteda in his mission to Rome, where he dared to treat the con- 
 sort of his royal master his own Queen as well as she is your lord- 
 ships' with insults that made it impossible for her to remain on the 
 spot, even if the defence of her honor had not imperiously called her 
 hither) Grimm and Reden, and another whose name does not 
 occur to me, but who is also a minister of the Grand Duke, at the 
 place where the scene is alleged to have taken place, were the 
 active and the unscrupulous agents in the part of the plot against Her 
 Majesty. The worthy Baron Grimm, in the zeal which he shows 
 for his employers, I have no hesitation in saying, has scrupled not 
 to throw faraway from him all those feelings of decorum, which a 
 man may not dismiss, even in the most ordinary occasions of private 
 life. It seems, however, that in affairs of diplomacy, things may be 
 justifiable in a minister which would disgradfe a private individual 
 that conduct may earn him the applause of his employers which 
 would call down upon his head the reprobation of every honest man 
 in private life that actions may cover him with rewards, which he 
 falsely calls honors, that would dishonor and disgrace him, had he 
 been only acting in his individual capacity. My lords, I say, Baron 
 Grirnm did that which would have inevitably worked this destruction 
 to his character if he had not been a diplomatic agent to whom I 
 presume, all things are lawful. 
 
 Baron Grimm was living in certain apartments they were his 
 own by occupation. He heard that the Queen was about to arrive 
 he artfully gave them up. He accomodated Her Royal Highness 
 with the use of those rooms. He kindly left the principal apartment, 
 and disinterestedly encountered the inconvenience of a change to 
 other and worse lodgings. Fie courteously gave her the use of those 
 from which he had himself departed; and, as soon as Her Royal 
 Highness departed from the rooms on the very day that she left 
 them he returned again to the same rooms, and was found with 
 another coadjutor in this plot, running up and down to use Barbara 
 Kress's expression, "running about the rooms," examining every-
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 113 
 
 thing, looking at the furniture, prying into the beds, taking note of 
 what had passed, that he might report to those who he thought 
 would be pleased to find that lie had gone upon such errands, but 
 who I know and feel were above sending him upon such a dirty 
 mission, lint in one character he does not appear. Active as this 
 agent every where is in the vile office of a runner of the conspiracy; 
 sedulous and unscrupulous in his observations as he has been; regard- 
 less of his own dignity, and forgetful of that of the sovereign whom 
 he represents, as he has proved himself to be he neverthelsss does 
 not condescend to make himself a witness. He does not adventure 
 to come forward here; he does not show the same boldness to face 
 your lordships and us, which he showed to face the reprobation of 
 the public in his own country, and wherever else his conduct should 
 be criticised. Here the baron is not forthcoming here he is not to 
 be found yet here he was a material witness, material in propor- 
 tion to the importance of the matters which Barbara Kress alone 
 has been brought into this country to swear to; of paramount im- 
 portance, because Kress is the only witness who is brought to swear 
 to any one of those particulars which are said to have passed at 
 Carlsruhe; of still greater importance, when your lordships reflect, 
 that because he entered the room at the moment the Queen left it, he 
 must have been able, if Kress spoke the truth, to give confirmation 
 to her statement. The Baron is, however, absent and the only wit- 
 ness that could be obtained by all the skill, the industry, and the zeal 
 of the several agents, to speak to the extraordinary fact, is this single 
 German chamber-maid. 
 
 Let us then pursue the history of the only witness whom, with all 
 the means in their possession, and so little scrupulousness in using 
 them, these agents have been able to gather from all Germany. 
 Look, my lords, at the contradictory account the woman gives of her 
 motives for coming over to this country. She twice over swore that 
 she came upon compulsion that she only came because she was 
 forced and you no sooner turn the page than you find that she made a 
 bargain for compensation for the loss of time; but she was never pro- 
 mised anything no recompense nothingof the kind \\Qbelohnung, 
 only an entschcldigung^ it was said while she was examined, and said 
 by those who were examining her: but she would not say so, she 
 would not adopt the expression tendered her; though offered to 
 her, she would not take it into her mouth, but she said she came by 
 compulsion, ytt at the same time confessed that she had bargained 
 for recompense. But what had she reason to expect without any 
 express bargain being made? What reason had she to expect recom- 
 pense? And with what liberality had she ground to hope it would 
 be meted out to her? She shall again tell the story which she told 
 however reluctantly. None of your lordships can forget with what 
 reluctance she let it be wrung from her; but, happily, still it was 
 wrung from her. Your lordships will find the part of the examina- 
 tion I allude to in page 193 of the printed minutes. She was asked, 
 whether she had ever been examined before, and she answered, she 
 
 10*
 
 114 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 had been at Hanover. The examination then proceeded thus: " What 
 did you get for going to Hanover?" "I received a small payment, 
 just for the time I had lost." " How much was that payment?" 
 " I cannot exactly tell; it was little, very little." Now this I pledge 
 myself to the accuracy of " little, very little," those are her words at 
 page 193. Why then, it was said, the less it was, the more easily it 
 may be remembered; but it subsequently turned out, that it was not 
 because the reward was so little, but because it was so great, that she 
 could not recollect it. " It was little, very little." Very little! What 
 was this mere nothing? What, my lords, if it was a larger sum by 
 five or six times than her yearly wages? What, if it was a larger sum 
 by ten times than her yearly wages? What, if this little, this mere 
 nothing, was even greater than her yearly wages, including all the 
 perquisites of her place? What, if added to the sum she got for ano- 
 ther trip to be examined at Frankfort she having been absent from 
 her home six days on one trip, and four or five on the other what 
 if for one fortnight of a year, taking the going and returning into the 
 account, this "very little," this mere nothing, which she cannot recol- 
 lect, which she dismissed from her memory, and cannot now recall, 
 because it was so little, turns out to be about double the sum, at all 
 events more than half as much again, as she ever received, wages, 
 perquisites, incidents included, in any one year, in her occupation of 
 chambermaid! Now, my lords, will any man of plain ordinary un- 
 derstanding and capacity, even if he has not been accustomed to sift 
 evidence even if this were the first time he was ever called upon 
 thus to exercise his faculties pretend to say that he can believe this 
 woman, in her attempt to deny receiving any thing in her failure in 
 the attempt to recollect what it was, because it was so little a sum, 
 when it was a sum that must have made an impression upon her 
 mind, not only sufficient to prevent forgetfulness of it, not only (if she 
 spoke truth voluntarily and honestly) to make her have no doubt iti 
 her mind of the amount, and no difficulty in telling it; but what is 
 equally of importance for your lordships' consideration to make that 
 part of her evidence be pronounced false also, in which she says she 
 expects no reward in future; when here you see, that her expectations 
 for the future must be measured by her recollection of the liberality 
 with which she has been treated during the past? 
 
 My lords, you will find that the same equivocating spirit pursues 
 this witness through the details of the case. The way in which she 
 describes herself to have left the room where she pretends to have 
 witnessed one particular scene, in order to go to the Countess of Oldi's 
 chamber her way of denying when examined, whether she went 
 there to satisfy herself that the person she had seen, or thought she 
 had seen, was the Princess clearly shows your lordships, that she 
 did not go to Madame Oldi's room for such a purpose, if she ever went 
 at all; for, in answer to one of the questions put to her, as to the pur- 
 pose of her going to Madame Oldi's room, and whether it was not to 
 assure herself as to whom she had seen in the other room, she says, 
 " I saw it was the Princess," which had nothing to do with the ques-
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 115 
 
 lion as to the purpose of her going to Madame Oldi's room, if the 
 other account she gives were true, that she had no such motive in 
 going to Madame Oldi's room, which was not an immaterial point; for 
 it was necessary that she should negative any such reason for going 
 to that room, as otherwise she could not prove that she had certainly 
 seen the Queen in the other room AW constat that the Queen was 
 in that room, because Madame Oldi was not the only other woman in 
 the house. It does not prove it was the Queen because Madame Oldi 
 was in that room; but still the witness having gone thither with the 
 intention of ascertaining if Madame Oldi was there, was a complete 
 proof, that she was not satisfied of the person she had seen being the 
 person whom it was her interest and her well-paid employment to 
 come forward here for her employers in this conspiracy, and swear 
 she had seen. I have mentioned to your lordships, that in the Carls- 
 ruhe case the ambassador Grimm does not come forward, with others 
 who might have been brought others, belonging to the place others, 
 belonging to the Queen's suite to the absence of whom the observa- 
 tion I had the honor of making yesterday, and which I may have 
 occasion to repeat afterwards, at present most strongly and most unde- 
 niably' applies. 
 
 But now, my lords, we must again cross the Alps in pursuing the 
 history of these witnesses. And there we find, that having dismissed 
 all the principal performers in this piece, those who remain are mere 
 make-weights thrown in to give color and consistency to the fanciful 
 picture, and to all of whom are applicable the general observations 
 upon such testimony, which I had the honor of submitting to your 
 lordships yesterday. Nothing, I think, can strike any one as being 
 more inconceivable, than that what all these witnesses swear to have 
 seen take place, should have been disclosed to mortal eyes by either 
 of the parties to whom the depositions apply. The character and na- 
 ture of those witnesses of the lowest class of society of the meanest 
 appearance in every respect of the humblest occupations, some of 
 them even degrading ones, after all the pains taken to render them 
 produceable witnesses the total failure to clothe them with any the 
 least appearance even of ordinary respectability all this must have 
 forcibly struck every person who saw but a single one of them here. 
 I might remind your lordships of Guggiari, one of the boatmen em- 
 ployed on the Lake of ('omo, one of a boat's crew of eleven all of 
 whom were present at the time, none of whom had any intercourse 
 of a confidential nature with either of the parties if we are to talk of 
 two parties here, as the accusation compels me to do, contrary to all 
 truth, and without any proof on the part of the Bill. The impossibility 
 of conceiving that any individuals in their ordinary senses, and pos- 
 sessing their common understandings, would have allowed such things 
 to have passed before eleven men ol this description, and all strangers 
 to them, must have struck every one who heard the evidence given, 
 and have dispensed with the necessity, and almost excluded me from 
 the duty of cross-examining a single one of this swarm of petty wit- 
 nesses, who were filling up the gap between Kress and Demout. Why
 
 116 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 were none of the others called none of the crew? Did Guarsiariever 
 
 oo 
 
 tell to any person what he had seen? Had he ever from that moment 
 to the present time whispered it to one living ear? Yes, once. When? 
 Where? At Milan to the Commission. So it is with all the rest. 
 Rastelli, who swears to a scene too disgusting to be gone over in 
 detail who swears to that abomination having been impudently 
 practised in the open face of day, without the most ordinary covering 
 or shelter, whilst he was at four paces distance, and where the turn of 
 his head might have revealed it to him this Rastelli, like all the rest, 
 (for it is an observation that applies to every one of the witnesses of 
 these strange abominations, as if the relation between cause and effect 
 in this singular case was wholly suspended,) had never opened his 
 mouth on the subject his lips were hermetically sealed, never to be 
 opened again, until he appeared before the Commission at Milan. 
 Ten long months elapse the same silence! Was he living the life of 
 a hermit all these ten months? Did he, like a solitary recluse, never 
 see mortal face, nor approach human ear? Was there no brother 
 sister, friend, man, woman, or child, to whom he could whisper it? 
 To child, perhaps, profligate as I have no doubt he is, he might refrain 
 from reve iling it; but to brother, to mistress, to wife, he might have 
 communicated it to boatmen, who have been, as I know, the means 
 of corrupting not a few of those whom they have attended, for they 
 have confessed that they have got into the way of telling stories which 
 had not a shadow of foundation, because their passengers had got into 
 the way of paying them for being amused with those details by way 
 of gossip not one whisper ever escapes the lips of Rastelli, or of the 
 other witnesses, with respect to the sights they had seen. Is it, my 
 lords, the effect of seeing such sights to make men silent? Is it the 
 effect of seeing such sights to make men even in the higher ranks of 
 society, silent? How many are there of your lordships, who have not 
 had long official habits whose lips are not under the regulation which 
 such experience is calculated to inflict whose whole movements of 
 mind and body are not disciplined and squared according to the rules 
 of a court, so as even to enact the courtier when none are present 
 how many are there, even of your lordships, who would not in your 
 natural state instantly have revealed it to some friend or other? But 
 my lords, I profess I can name none in private society I can hardly 
 name any gentleman, however prudent and discreet in his conversa- 
 tion, who not being intrusted confidentially, who only seeing what the 
 party showed they evidently did not mean to be concealed, who under 
 no seal of secrecy became acquainted with the fact, that would not 
 necessarily, on witnessing so strange a sight, have made those wiser 
 for talking with him whom he might afterwards chance to converse 
 withal. Yet these low people, so different from persons in the upper 
 ranks of life, are so much more discreet, so infinitely more upon their 
 guard at all times and seasons, so incomparably more delicate in their 
 conversation, talk only to persons of purity whose ears would be con- 
 taminated, and whose cheeks would be crimsoned by the repetition of 
 these details; for in no one case does any of the witnesses pretend to
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 117 
 
 say, that he had ever told a living being of those strange and abomi- 
 nable sights which he had just witnessed. Were they sights of every 
 day's occurrence'? Was the Princess of Wales kissing her servant 
 openly, and without drawing the curtains, a thing that happened on 
 the lake of Coino as often as the wind blew over it? Was the Prin- 
 cess riding with her servants in a carriage, in an attitude of foul inde- 
 cency not to be named without a blush, an occurrence which happened 
 every day? My lords, my lords, the sight said to have been witnessed 
 was so strange, so unheard-of, so frightful, so monstrous, so porten- 
 tous, that no person could have beheld it and kept it to himself for a 
 single day. But days, weeks, months, passed away, and then it was 
 told for the first time before the Milan Commission! It was then, for 
 the first time, that the lips of those persons were unsealed! But I 
 will not admit, that they concealed this extraordinary tiling for weeks 
 or days, or even hours. They may indeed perchance have concealed 
 it, from the instant that they invented it, upon hearing on their journey 
 to Milan, that their predecessors had been well, paid for lesser slanders; 
 they perchance may have kept it to themselves lest they should have 
 covered themselves with infamy among those who knew it to be alia 
 falsehood among their neighbors they may have concealed the vile 
 fiction but they kept it secret no longer than the journey to Milan 
 demanded; and in no case, will I venture to say, was it kept longer in 
 their breasts than from the time it first crossed their imagination to 
 the time they went and earned, by telling it, the reward of their per- 
 jury. 
 
 But, my lords, you will see that in this instance we have no variety. 
 There is, in this respect, a general sameness in the conduct of these 
 witnesses. In other instances there are variations of importance. Do 
 your lordships recollect Pietro Cucchi, the waiter from Trieste? Can 
 any man who saw him have forgotten him? Does he not rise before 
 you the instant I mention his name unless any of your lordships 
 should recollect the face, the never-to-be-forgotten expression of face, 
 although the name may have escaped you? Do your lordships recol- 
 lect that unmatched physiognomy those gloating eyes that sniffing 
 nose that lecherous mouth with which the wretcli stood here to 
 detail the impurities which he had invented, to repeat the falsehood 
 to which he had previously sworn at Milan? Do you recollect the 
 unparalleled eye of that hoary pander from Trieste? Did lie not look, 
 as the great poet of Italy describes the hoary unnatural lecher in the 
 infernal regions to have looked, when he paints him as regarding him 
 with the eye, the piercing eye, of an ancient tailor peeping through 
 the eye of his needle?* 
 
 I remember that man well. The story he told is enough; but I 
 will contradict him, for he at least shall not pass unpunished, lie at 
 least is here. He must be made an example of. I can contradict 
 
 * rjnnrdommi 
 
 Come vccchio Sartor fa nclla cruna. 
 
 DANTE.
 
 118 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 others I can drag others to punishment but he at any rate shall 
 not escape. My lords, I will show you, by evidence undoubted, un- 
 questionable, above all suspicion that that man must have sworn false- 
 ly. I will prove it by the room itself. I can, if I will, prove it by the 
 position of the door. I think his own account of the position of 
 that door in answer to questions put by your lordships, might almost 
 save me the trouble of doing it. But I will show you more. I will 
 show you that what he swore cannot be true either here, if your 
 lordships put me to the necessity of it, or elsewhere, for the sake of 
 justice. I can show, my lords, that the Queen slept at Trieste, in her 
 whole life, but one night: that she came one day went to the opera, 
 as he admitted she did (that was the only truth the wretch told) 
 left it on the morrow and neither before nor after ever crossed the 
 threshold of the gates of Trieste in her days. 
 
 My lords, I dismiss the other witnesses of the same description. I 
 take this filthy cargo by sample purposely. Let those who will 
 delve into the bulk I will not break it more. That it is damaged 
 enough, the sample tells sufficiently, and with a single remark I dis- 
 miss it. Recollect, my lords, those foolish stories, not only about the 
 hand, but about the pictures, and about the bracelet chain being put 
 round the neck, with I know not what other trumpery, got up for the 
 purpose of variegating the thrice told-tale; and yon will, I think, 
 agree with me, that the Italians who coined the fictions are pretty 
 much the same now that they were known by our ancestors to be 
 some centuries ago. Whether lachimo be the legitimate offspring of 
 our great Shakspeare's mind or not, may be doubted; yet your lord- 
 ships will readily recognise more than one of the witnesses, but one 
 especially, as the own brother of lachimo. How has he represented 
 himself? 
 
 -"I have belied a lady, 
 
 The princess of this country, and the air on't 
 Revengingly enfeebles me. 
 
 -Mine Italian brain 
 
 'Gan in your duller Britain operate 
 Most vilely; for my vantage, excellent; 
 And, to be brief, my practice so prevail'd, 
 That I return'd with simular proof enough 
 To make the noble Leonatus mad, 
 By wounding his belief in her renown 
 With tokens thus, and thus; averring notes 
 Of chamber-hanging, pictures, this her bracelet! 
 
 My lords, the cases are the same. We have the same evidence, 
 from the same country, for the same purpose, almost with the 
 same efl'ects; and by the same signs, marks, and tokens, with an 
 extraordinary coincidence, the two cases are sought to be substantiated. 
 
 And now permit me, having disposed generally of the characters 
 of the witnesses, to call the attention of your lordships and it shall 
 be within much narrower limits than I could have done, had I not 
 necessarily anticipated the greater part of my comments on this part
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 119 
 
 of the case, in describing the character of the witnesses who support- 
 ed it; because while I have been dealing with the subject in that 
 way, I have been of necessity led to anticipate, by commenting on 
 the different branches of the case which each witness was called 
 upon to substantiate permit me, I say, to call the attention of your 
 lordships to the several heads, as it were, of charge the several 
 counts if I may so speak of this strange indictment, under the form 
 of a Bill of Pains and Penalties which is brought forward against 
 Her Majesty by the ministers of her Royal Husband. 
 
 Your lordships will recollect that the first of these is evidently a 
 Neapolitan scene. There the connection is alleged to have been first 
 completed there the parties came together and accomplished, for the 
 first time, but with great freedom, and with long continuance, and 
 without any restraint at all, the purpose which they appear, I will 
 not say long, to have cherished, but to have conceived somewhere 
 about ten days or a fortnight before. The Princess of Wales (this 
 is the accusation), having been theretofore a person of unimpeacha- 
 ble character, a person of unimpeachable life proved to have been 
 so by much stronger evidence than if she had never been suspected 
 proved to have been so, if there is truth in evidence, if there is 
 benefit in acquittal, if there is justice in the world proved to have 
 been so better than if she had never been tried, by two solemn 
 acquittals, after two searching examinations carried on behind her 
 back, and in circumstances utterly unfair and unfavorable to her 
 so much proved to have been so, that when one set of ministers had 
 reported her clear and innocent of the charges brought against her, 
 but recommended her to be censured for what some persons were 
 pleased to term "levities," their successors in oflice, the authors of 
 the present proceeding, were in no wise satisfied with this scanty 
 acquittal, as they thought it, but determined that the censure for 
 levities should be expunged, and recommended solemnly, that she 
 should be instantly received, by her sovereign, her uncle, and her 
 father, at his rigorously virtuous court, as the purest princess would be 
 received who ever adorned the walks of royal life this character 
 having, by such trials, been supported having come out of the fire 
 purer, hi the eyes at least of those who favor the present charge 
 against her how do those who at least arc thought to favor this 
 charge, but I should deem unjustly thought considering their former 
 history how do they say she demanded herself the instant she left 
 England? Their maxim their rule of conduct their criterion of 
 probability' is, nemo rcpcntc NON fit turpissimus. Arriving in Italy, 
 say they, this pure and unimpeachable personage hires a servant, a 
 man then at least in a menial capacity, of whom I shall afterwards 
 have to say a few words. She moves towards Naples; and in the 
 course of a few days, certainly in less than a month, you are desired 
 to believe that the whole of the criminal intercourse commenced, 
 that the degradation of the Princess was completed, and all restraint 
 Hung a\vay from the mistress of the servant she becomes tin- mis- 
 tress of the lover, of a menial lover plunging herself into a depth
 
 120 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 of vice which even habitually profligate women could not for years 
 accustom themselves to display or endure. Now, my lords, the whole 
 case against Her Majesty falls to the ground, if your lordships do not 
 believe, that on the second night of her arrival at Naples the alleged 
 connection between the parties, the Royal Mistress and her hired ser- 
 vant, commenced; because Demont and Majocchi have both sworn 
 to facts which, if true, nay, if in their least particular true, prove 
 the connection to have begun from that night, and have from thence- 
 forward continued. And, with what caution is this carried on? 
 Suppose that a long course of profligacy could not only bend the 
 mind to the disgraceful circumstances, but render a woman incautious 
 by habit that is possible. But, it is not so here; for the first act is 
 about the most incautious of the whole I mean her choosing to go 
 by the passage where she must be observed, in order to avoid the safer 
 way to the room, the way through which it was highly probable no 
 eye could watch her. 
 
 Then, my lords, only recollect the manner in which the evidence 
 is brought forward; only see the manner in which this case is offered 
 to your lordships' belief. How is the room prepared for the first 
 night when the guilty pair were to meet? By placing in the room 
 which was to be the scene of their first loves loves so ardent, that 
 to accomplish them, all regard for decency and decorum had in one 
 instant been flung away, and all caution to conceal them been for 
 ever abandoned by placing in the room one small iron bedstead, of 
 dimensions hardly sufficient to contain a single person, and only used 
 upon a journey or in a voyage! This was the only preparation in a 
 house, every room of which contained a comfortable bed. Nay, in 
 that very room itself, there was another and a large bed, which the 
 witnesses tell you was left untouched. This circumstance alone is 
 decisive. The witness tells you, in her first examination, that the 
 larger bed was not much tumbled; but, a day or two afterwards, I 
 think on the third day, she mends this materially; and then, in answer 
 to a question put to her by my learned friend, Mr. Williams, who 
 reminded her that she had said the large bed was not much tumbled, 
 she says, " Yes, I said so when I was examined the other day, but I 
 have since recollected something, and I can tell you more about it 
 now." One of your lordships had that explained, and out came the 
 story of the stains last of all after she had again said, the second time 
 mending the first account, that it looked as if two persons had pressed 
 upon it in the middle. I repeat, last of all she recollected the stains; 
 but what those stains were she could not tell. No person examined 
 her about them; but she had not much liked my learned friend's 
 operations the day before. She was not in good charity with Mr. 
 Williams, after the second day's examination, which happened to be 
 in his hands, and not in those of my learned friend the Solicitor-general: 
 and, accordingly, she then said she would tell him nothing more^ or, 
 as she said herself, she recollected now \vhat she had forgotten then. 
 What did Mr. Williams say to her? What had passed in the interval 
 to make her recollect one single tittle which the leading examinatioi
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 121 
 
 of the Solicitor-general, (I speak it not offensively,) with the brief 
 before him, ought not to have made her remember, and which yet it 
 could not make her remember then? Was it likely or probable she 
 should forget so strong a circumstance as the situation of the bed, 
 when she knew that she came here to prove adultery when she felt, 
 at every word she spoke, that she was here for no other purpose? 
 The witness farther volunteered to say, that the Princess returned 
 home early from the opera. I shall show, that she remained till the 
 opera was over, in the presence of the royal family of Naples, and in 
 the royal box. She said, that the Queen was in a state of consider- 
 able agitation when she dismissed Billy Austin, for the purpose of 
 being alone. "She said that Billy Austin had been accustomed to 
 sleep in the Queen's room. But I shall show your lordships that this 
 had ceased long before. I shall show your lordships that he slept in 
 the next room to Her Majesty, and that the door of communication 
 was constantly unlocked. The witness said, that Her Majesty for- 
 bade him to come into the room; but she did not forbid him, in the 
 most simple and effectual of all ways by turning the key. She also 
 describes the Queen as corning home early from the opera, to do what 
 no man can doubt was adultery, under all the agitation and perturba- 
 tion of a bridal night. Yet, my lords, will any man believe, that this 
 person so circumstantial and minute on other occasions, with a perfect 
 sense how infinitely important it was to the tale that the bed should 
 be represented not only as tumbled, (which yet she said was not much 
 tumbled,) but as having been slept in by two persons will any man 
 believe, that if she then knew this, or after wards could have recollected 
 it, and if it was not a mere after-thought and fabrication, she would 
 not have said at first, " Oh yes, the bed looked as if two persons had 
 slept in it;" and then the stains would have been added, which she 
 probably knows the meaning of, although like Barbara Kress, she 
 denies she understood them? It is plainly out of human probability, 
 that persons should recollect them, unless they understood them; 
 otherwise, they are no more than ordinary marks or stains, which no 
 person ever heeds, any more than the wind that passes over his head, 
 or the marks left by the rain upon Ins path. 
 
 My lords, at Naples, another scene took place, to which Demont is 
 the only witness. She takes care to tell you no time. She is aware 
 of the consequences of that. She will not give you the means of 
 sifting her tale, or expose herself to the risk of contradiction. She 
 will not tell you, whether it was a week after their arrival at Naples, 
 whether it was near the beginning or near the end of their stay there, 
 or towards the middle of it. But some night during their stay at 
 Naples, she saw Hergami come out of his room naked except his 
 shirt, without stockings on, without a night-gown on, and moving 
 towards the part of the corridor into which the Queen's chamber 
 entered. She did not start back, she did not' retire; but she moved 
 on in the direction towards Bergami. And Bergami did not start 
 back; he did not retire; Bergami did not make any excuse, and Bt-r- 
 gami seeing her before his eyes moved on also; and she made her 
 VOL. i. 11
 
 122 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 escape out of the door; and he still did not bethink him of making 
 an excuse, but moved on to the accomplishment of his guilty purpose, 
 with more alacrity than almost a husband would have done, in going 
 to the bed-chamber of his own bride. Your lordships will find all 
 this in page 251 of the printed evidence. I hardly stop to refer to 
 pages, because I do not rely on particular passages, but only draw 
 your attention to the main and leading features of the case, which 
 cannot possibly have escaped the recollection of those among you who 
 heard the evidence given at your bar. 
 
 Let me now remind you of the scene which is represented to have 
 taken place at Catanea. And observe, my lords, that here there are 
 two witnesses who might have been called to speak to this transaction, 
 if it really did take place, both of whom were named and vouched 
 by the Attorney-general in his opening. " Two maids," says he, 
 " were sleeping in the next room to that of the Queen; they both saw 
 her come back from Bergami's room at an early hour of the morning; 
 they both heard the child crying and the Countess trying to pacify 
 her; and they both must have known what all this meant." Now, 
 the Attorney-general not only does not venture to call both, but only 
 one; but he does not venture to state, that these two women have 
 ever communicated together, from that time to this, upon a tittle of 
 what that morning or that night had passed. They'never did com- 
 municate together they could not communicate together for no- 
 thing of the kind had passed. The whole thing was false; but Demont 
 alone is called. And what is the story as she tells it? Now, I pray 
 your lordships to attend to it; for it is, if possible, more incredible 
 upon the face of it, from the multiplied improbabilities under which 
 it labors, than that which I have just run over at Naples. Bergami 
 usually slept, not only not near the Queen's bedroom, but on the 
 other side of the court, which formed the centre of the building. On 
 the opposite side of the court was his ordinary bedroom while he 
 was well; but he became sick; he was seized with a severe fever, and 
 he was brought over from his usual room into another room, belong- 
 ing, I believe, to the Countess Oldi; and there he was lying ill for some 
 days. Now, is it not a little extraordinary, that the scene of this 
 amour at Catanea should be laid I will not say in that room, though 
 this would be strange enough, considering it could only be approached 
 through the room of the maids but that it should have been laid at 
 the time when Bergami had a fever, and not when he was in good 
 health? Bergami is there as a patient not as a lover; and yet this is 
 the particular moment chosen for those endearments which are left to 
 be understood; and then Her Majesty must have Bergami placed just in 
 that situation of all others, in which access to his bedroom was rendered 
 the most difficult and embarrassing, nay, the most impossible, when 
 there were the two maids sleeping in the room between Madame Oldi's 
 and his (for the Queen slept in that which had been Madame Oldi's 
 room). The Princess moved out of her room, and one of the servants 
 had undressed her this very witness had undressed her in her own 
 room; and the story is ? that she removed out of her room in the night,
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 123 
 
 and returned in the morning not that she was always lying in Bev- 
 gami's room, but that she went there in the night, and coming back in 
 the morning, she was seen by the maids returning. Is it not a marvel- 
 lous thing, my lords, that this should be the mode of operation? that the 
 thought should not strike Her Majesty, that, in the accomplishment of 
 this purpose, she was running the utmost risks without any inducement 
 risks similar to those which she ran at Naples in going through 
 Majocchi's room instead of the empty room while she might, by an. 
 alteration of the rooms, have rendered all safe and easy? She had 
 only to place herself in the servants' room, or in Madame Oldi's new 
 room, and there she could have had access to Bergami, or Bergami to 
 her, without crossing the threshold of her maid's door? But, if your 
 lordships are to believe the representations made to you, all this is only 
 in furtherance of, and in conformity with, the uniform tactics of Her 
 Majesty, to multiply damning proofs against her own character, her 
 own existence, happiness, comfort, every thing dear to her in the 
 world. For this is the plot she is in, and she is under a spell, if you 
 believe the witnesses, never to do an act injurious to her character, 
 without providing at the same time ample evidence to make that 
 injury inevitable and effectual. 
 
 And now I am told that I can contradict all this by means of Ma- 
 riette Bron, the sister of Demont, and that it must all be believed 
 unless Mariette Bron is called. I say, why did not you call Mariette 
 Bron? I say, she is your witness; because you opened her evidence 
 because you vouched her because you asserted that she was pre- 
 sent because you told us what she saw. And yet you call only her 
 sister, whom you have in your own pay. I say, she is your witness 
 because this is a criminal proceeding; because it is worse than a 
 criminal proceeding; or of a nature higher at least in its exigency of 
 pure, perfect, unsuspected, sufficient, nay, abundant proof. I say a 
 Bill of Pains and Penalties is a measure of such severity, that it ought 
 to be supported by evidence, better, if possible, and stronger, than 
 that which takes away life or limb. I say, she is your witness, and 
 not ours because we are the defendants, the accused and oppressed 
 by the Bill of Pains and Penalties, which does not only accuse, but 
 oppress and overwhelm. She is your witness and not ours because 
 we stand upon our defence; we defy you to prove us guilty, and 
 unless you prove our guilt, and until you prove that guilt, we ought 
 not if justice yet reigns here, we ought not to be called upon for a 
 defence. My lords, in a common civil suit, I can comprehend such 
 tactics. I am not bound, in claiming a debt, to call, for the purpose 
 of proving my case, my adversary's servant, or his clerk, or his rela- 
 tion; but if I am placed upon my defence, charged with even the lowest 
 crime known in the law, pure, unsuspected testimony must be given, 
 whether it is to be derived from one quarter or from another whe- 
 ther it is to be got from the prosecutor's side or our own. And I will 
 put a case to remind your lordships of this. Suppose a highway 
 robbery or murder alleged to have been committed, and a man is put 
 upon his trial for it; suppose that a Bow Street oilicer, panting for
 
 124 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 his reward, or an accomplice, infamous by his own story, or a 
 spy, degraded by his calling, or any other contaminated, impure, 
 necessarily suspected witness of any description, is alone put forward 
 to prove the charge; and suppose a friend of the defendant were 
 'standing by, his servant, or his partner in trade, or any person who is 
 barely competent, by the rules of evidence, to appear as a witness 
 any person except his wife, who cannot be a witness I say, no man 
 ought to be I say, no man can be I say, by our uniform practice, 
 no man ever would be put in jeopardy of his life, or be called 
 upon to produce in his defence, that friend, that relation, that servant, 
 unless the case against him had been first proved by unsuspicious 
 testimony; and if only the degraded spy, or the infamous accomplice, 
 or the hired informer, or the Bow Street runner, were called against 
 him, their testimony is not such as to make it needful for the prisoner 
 to call his friend. It is the prosecutor who must call that friend: it is 
 no excuse to say he is a friend, a relation of the accused; a partner- 
 ship is no excuse: the English law demands, what common sense 
 approves, that every man shall be considered innocent until he is 
 proved guilty; and that guilt must be proved at the peril of him who 
 seeks to condemn losing the purpose of his prosecution. 
 
 My lords, the Queen is in a most singular situation. She must 
 open her mind to painful constructions of the conduct of those who 
 surround her. She may not view with a charitable eye the actions, 
 and construe the feelings and the motives, of all she has intercourse 
 with. She has been inured, by a long course of persecution by the 
 experience of much oppression by familiarity in her own person 
 with manifold frauds of her adversaries by all the arts of spies by 
 all the malice of the spiteful and revengeful by all those hidden 
 artifices which are never at first and not always even at last, disco- 
 vered artifices which only sometimes she has had the means of 
 tracing and exposing to the day. Such is the life which she has led, 
 the life of which this last scene now sifting by you, is very far from 
 forming an exception; all that she has seen heretofore all that she 
 has seen now since she went last to Italy all that she has witnessed 
 here since her return all that she has seen since this proceeding be- 
 gan and she has heard the evidence read, down to the examination 
 of the last witness on the last day all is calculated to make suspi- 
 cion, general, almost universal suspicion, the inmate of an otherwise 
 unsuspecting breast. It is the fate of those who are ill-used it is 
 one of the hardest portions in the lot of those who have been so 
 binTetted by the Grimms, the Omptedas, the Redens, not to mention 
 the Douglases, the Omptedas of our own land it is the hard lot of 
 those who have passed through such trials, that the solace of unsus- 
 pecting confidence is banished from their harassed bosoms; their 
 hearts are seared and hardened; they never can know whom they 
 dare trust. And even at this hour, Her Mnjesty may ignorantly be 
 harboring a second viper in her bosom, of the same breed as that 
 which has already attempted to destroy her, and engendered in the 
 same nest. The Queen, my lords, has about her person a sister of
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 125 
 
 Demont. She was placed there by that Demont. She was kept 
 there by the arts of that Demont. She has corresponded with that 
 Dernont. They have corresponded in ciphers together, if you are to 
 believe Demont, which I do not. But I take her as described by the 
 case for the accusers; and, in all the circumstances which justify, nay 
 prescribe suspicion, as a duty to her own personal safety, my learned 
 friends yet leave their case short against the Queen, proved by such 
 evidence as I have described to you, or rather, as it is painted by the 
 witnesses themselves, and leave Her Majesty to call their own wit- 
 nesses! They say, " Why do not you call the waiting-woman, Ma- 
 riette Bron, who is still left by her sister with you whom that sister 
 first planted in your household whom that sister made you retain 
 about your person, at the very time she was hatching her plot against 
 you?" My lords, he who fulmined over Greece, and darted through 
 her assemblies his words of fire, once said, what I would now repeat, 
 imploring you not to take it in our own poor language, but recollect 
 the immortal accents that fell from him, in which he imprinted on the 
 hearts of his countrymen, that instead of all outworks, all fortifica- 
 tions, all ramparts, which man can throw up to protect the weak, the 
 best security which the honest and the feeble have against the fraud- 
 ful and the powerful, is that mistrust which nature, for wise purposes, 
 to defend the innocent against the strong and the cunning, has im- 
 planted in the bosom of all human kind. It is alien to the innocent 
 nature; but it is one of the misfortunes to which innocence, by per- 
 secution, is subject, to be obliged to harbor mistrust, while surrounded 
 by plotters so little scrupulous as the Grimms and Omptedas, working 
 with agents so still less scrupulous, as Majocchi, Sacchi, and Demont. 
 
 My lords, I am satisfied in my own mind, and I have no doubt all 
 who hear me will agree with me, that we arc not bound to call this 
 witness. I know not, if we had been ordered to deliver our opinion 
 upon the subject to our illustrious client, that we should not have 
 awakened suspicions in the Queen's breast, which even yet she does 
 not entertain towards her serving woman. I know that it would 
 have been our duty, as professional men, to have done so. I feel that 
 we should have been more than justified in so doing: and I am con- 
 fident that we might have appealed to the principles of which I have 
 now reminded your lordships, and might at once have left the case as 
 it stands, without calling this woman. But Her Majesty has as yet 
 seen no reason to part with one whom she still thinks a faithful servant. 
 Whatever we may suspect whatever the story of Demont may 
 have taught us to suppose likely the Queen has hitherto never 
 known any thing to the prejudice of her sister. That sister will, 
 therefore, be presented before your lordships, and you will have an 
 opportunity of hearing her account of those transactions which have 
 been so falsely described by others. But I again repeat that this is 
 gratuitous on our part that we do it voluntarily, from an over-excess 
 of caution, lest it should be suspected by any one for a moment, that 
 there is any witness whom we dare not to call. 
 
 In like manner the story told of what happened at Scharnitz, upon 
 
 11*
 
 126 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 the cross-examination of Demont, and upon the interrogatories put by 
 your lordships, really melted away so that very little of it remained, 
 and that little was perfectly equivocal, and quite consistent with the 
 most perfect propriety of demeanor on the part of the Queen. But 
 still, having seen that among some the story made an impression, at 
 first rather than at last, we shall explain it in a way not at all incon- 
 sistent with any thing but the peremptory swearing of Demont as to 
 the time, when she says that she could tell, within half an hour, how 
 long she had been asleep, although she could not tell how many hours 
 she was in a room wide awake the day before. Demont swore, that on 
 the night Bergami returned with the passports to Scharnitz, he went 
 to the Princess's room, and there remained the rest of that night. 
 My lords, I will prove this to be false. I will prove that the moment 
 the passports were brought, the preparations for the journey com- 
 menced. I will prove that Her Majesty set off on her travels within 
 an hour and an half after the arrival of the passports, and that that 
 time was scarcely sufficient to pack up and prepare for travelling. I 
 will also prove, that during the whole time the Queen's door was 
 hardly ever shut, and that there was a constant passing, not of Ber- 
 garni, but of the other gentlemen of her suite the Queen lying on 
 the bed in her travelling dress, ready to rise at one in the morning, 
 provided the passports arrived so early. So with respect to the 
 Carlsruhe case. We shall show your lordships that it is impossible 
 Kress can have sworn true. That she may have seen a woman in 
 that room, if she swears true at all, (which I do not believe,) I have 
 no occasion to question. But the night that Bergami went home, 
 and the only night he went home, at the period in question, was when 
 the Queen was left behind at a music party in the palace of her 
 illustrious relation to whom she was making a visit. She remained 
 there two hours and a half, and upwards she remained there until 
 between nine and ten o'clock, and she afterwards went to sup at the 
 Margravine's, where she always supped on the evenings she did not 
 dine there; and Bergami and his sister and child were then at home, 
 when he was taken ill, and went to bed. 
 
 My lords, I would remind you of an argument which is used in 
 the present case, and which I was rather surprised to hear that some 
 persons had been so very regardless of the details, as to allow to 
 influence their otherwise acute and ingenious minds. They say, that 
 if this is a plot if the witnesses are speaking what is untrue, they 
 have not sworn enough; that they ought to have proved it home, as 
 it were; that they ought to have convinced all mankind, of acts hav- 
 ing been unequivocally done which nothing but guilt could account 
 for which were utterly inconsistent with the supposition of inno- 
 cence. My lords, can those who argue thus, have forgotten two 
 things which every man knows, one common to all cases, and the 
 other happening in every stage of this namely, that the most 
 effectual way, because the safest of laying a plot, is not to swear too 
 hard, is not to swear too much, or to come too directly to the point; 
 but to lay the foundation in existing facts and real circumstances to
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 127 
 
 knit the false with the true to interlace reality with fiction to build 
 the fanciful fahric upon that which exists in nature and to escape 
 detection by taking most especial care, as they have done here, never 
 to have two witnesses to the same facts, and also to make the facts 
 as moderate, and as little offensive as possible. The architects of this 
 structure have been well aware of these principles, and have followed 
 the known rules of fabrication throughout. At Naples, why were 
 not other people called? Why were there never two witnesses to the 
 same fact? Because it is dangerous; because, when you are making 
 a plot, you should have one witness to a fact, and another to a con- 
 firmation; have some things true, which unimpeachable evidence can 
 prove; other things fabricated, without which the true would be of 
 no avail but avoid calling two witnesses to the same thing at the 
 same time, because the cross-examination is extremely likely to make 
 them contradict each other. Now, for example, my learned friend 
 opened a case that ought to be proved by a crowd of witnesses. Is 
 it so usual for a Princess of Wales, who is seen in a box at Naples, 
 to go on one occasion to the theatre and be hissed, whether she was 
 masked or no? Do the concealments of a masquerade, like the fabrica- 
 tions of this plot, exist longer than from the night till the morning? 
 Would not the hissing of such a person as the Princess, for such a 
 cause as the indecency of her dress, have been known to all who 
 attended the spectacle? Would it not afterwards have been believed 
 and told by all the gossips of gay, idle Naples 
 
 " Et otiosa credidit Neapolis, 
 Et ouine vicinum oppidum." 
 
 And yet one witness alone, instead of all Naples, appears. In like 
 manner, we have no other evidence at Naples of general demeanor. 
 Why have we none to speak to the state of the beds? Why none to 
 the state of the linen? I ask, what is become of Ann Preising? I 
 can answer that question as well as put it. She is here. I obtained 
 the fact from a witness in cross-examination. Why is she not called? 
 I can answer that question too. She is not an Italian. What reason 
 is there for not calling her? Your lordships can answer that quite 
 as well as I can. There was every reason for calling her, if they 
 durst have done it. The case is short without it. She could have 
 proved those marks she was the Princess's maid at that time. Beds! 
 she made them. Linen! she had the care of it. Who washed the 
 linen? Where was the laundress, the washer-woman? And yet 
 she is an Italian, for aught I know, though she is not called, and 
 though her being called must have proved the case, if Demont 
 speaks a single word of truth. They were practised in calling washer- 
 women. They knew the effect of it in England, in the former 
 plot. They were called in the Douglas plot, but they did not prove 
 much, and the plot failed. Made wise by experience, they call them 
 not here; although they know, by that experience, that if they could 
 have stood the examination, this plot could not have failed. 
 
 But, again, my lords, am I to be told by those who have attended
 
 128 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 to this evidence, that there has been any very great short-coming in 
 the swearing of some of the witnesses that they have not sworn un- 
 equivocally that they have not proved the facts? Why, what more 
 convincing proof of adultery would you have than you have had in 
 this case,, if you believe the witnesses, and they are uncontradicted? I 
 should not indeed say, if they are uncontradicted; for 1 contend that 
 your lordships ought not to compel me to contradict such witnesses; 
 but if you believe the witnesses, you have a case of adultery as 
 plainly substantiated in proof as ever gained verdict in Westmin- 
 ster Hall, or ever procured Divorce Bill to pass through your lord- 
 ships' house. All that Demont tells all that Majocchi tells every 
 titlte of what Sacchi tells at the end of his evidence is proof positive 
 of the crime of adultery. If you believe Sacchi, Bergami was seen 
 twice going into Her Majesty's bed-room, and not coming out from 
 thence. If you believe Sacchi, adultery is the least of her crimes 
 she is as bad at Messalina she is worse, or as bad as the Jacobins of 
 Paris covered even themselves with eternal infamy by endeavoring to 
 prove Marie Antoinette to have been. 
 
 My lords, I have another remark to make, before I leave this 
 case. I have heard it said, by some acute sifters of evidence " Oh! 
 you have damaged the witnesses, but only by proving falsehoods, by 
 proving perjury indeed, in unimportant particulars." I need but 
 remind your lordships, that this is an observation which can only 
 come from the lay part of the community. Any lawyer at once will 
 see how ridiculous, if I may so speak, such an objection must 
 always be. It springs from an entire confusion of ideas; a heedless 
 confounding together of different things. If I am to confirm the 
 testimony of an accomplice if I am to setup an informer no doubt 
 my confirmation ought to extend to matters connected with the crime 
 no doubt it must be an important particular, else it will avail me no- 
 thing to prove it by way of confirmation. But it is quite the reverse 
 in respect to pulling down a perjured witness, or a witness suspected 
 of swearing falsely. It is quite enough if he perjure himself in any 
 part, to take away all credit from the whole of his testimony. Can 
 it be said that you are to pick and choose; that you are to believe 
 part, and reject the rest as false? You may indeed be convinced 
 that a part is true, notwithstanding other parts are false provided 
 those parts are not falsely and wilfully sworn to by the witness, but 
 parts which he may have been ignorant of, or may have forgotten, or 
 may have mistaken. In this sense you may choose culling the part 
 you believe, and separating the part you think contradicted. But 
 if one part is not only not true is not only not consistent with the 
 fact, but is falsely and wilfully sworn to on his part if you are 
 satisfied that one part of his story is an invention to use the plain 
 word, a lie, and that he is a forsworn man good God! my lords, 
 what safety is there for human kind against the malice of their 
 enemies what chance of innocence escaping from the toils of the 
 perjured and unprincipled conspirator, if you are to believe part of a 
 tale even though ten witnesses swear to it, all of whom you convict
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 129 
 
 of lying and perjury in some other part of the story? I only pray your 
 lordships to consider what it is that forms the safeguard of each and 
 every one of you against the arts of the mercenary or the spiteful 
 conspirator. Suppose any one man and let each of your lordships 
 lay this to his mind before you dismiss the mighty topic suppose 
 any one of your lordships were to meet with a misfortune, the greatest 
 that can befall a human being, and the greater in proportion as he is 
 of an honorable mind, whose soul is alien even to any idea or glance 
 of suspicion of such a case being possible to himself, whose feelings 
 shudder at the bare thought of his name even being accidentally 
 coupled with a charge at which his nature revolts suppose that 
 mischance, which has happened to the best and purest of men, which 
 may happen to any of you to-morrow, and which if it does happen 
 must succeed against you to-morrow, if you adopt the principle I am 
 struggling against suppose any one of your lordships charged by a 
 mercenary scoundrel with the perpetration of a crime at which we 
 show in this country our infinite horror, by almost, and with singular 
 injustice, considering the bare charge to stand in the place of proof 
 suppose this plot laid to defame the fairest reputation iu England 
 I say, that reputation must be saved, if escape it may only by one 
 means. No perjury can be expected to be exposed in the main, the 
 principal part of the fabric that can be easily defended from any 
 attack against it; all the arts of the defendant's counsel, and all his 
 experience, will be exhausted in vain: the plotter knows full well (as 
 these conspirators have here done) how to take care that only one 
 person shall swear to a fact to lay no others present to choose the 
 time and select the place when contradiction cannot be given, by 
 knowing the time and the place where any one of your lordships, 
 whom he marks for his prey, may have chanced to be alone at any 
 moment of time. Contradiction is not here to be expected refuta- 
 tion is impossible. Prevarication of the witness upon the principal 
 part of his case, beyond all doubt, by every calculation of chances, 
 there will not be. But you will be defended by counsel; and the 
 court before whom you are tried will assuredly have you acquitted, 
 if the villain, who has immoveably told a consistent, firm tale 
 though not contradicted though not touched, upon the story itself 
 tells the least falsehood upon the most unimportant particulars on 
 which your advocate shall examine him. My lords, I ask for the 
 Queen no other justice than this upon which you all rely, and must 
 needs rely, for your own escape from the charge of unnatural crimes! 
 I desire she may have no other safety than that which forms the 
 only safely to any of your lordships in such cases, before any court 
 that deserved the name of a court of justice, where it might be your 
 lot to be dragged and tried. 
 
 I am told that the sphere of life in which Bergami, afterwards pro- 
 moted to be the Queen's chamberlain, originally moved, compared 
 witli the fortune which has since attended him in her service, is of 
 itself matter of suspicion. I should be sorry, my lords, to have lived 
 to see the day, when nothing more was required to rum any exalted
 
 130 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 character in this free country, than the having shown favor to a meri- 
 torious servant, by promoting hi in above his rank in society, the rank 
 of his birth. It is a lot which has happened to many a great man 
 which has been that of those who have been the ornaments of their 
 country. God forbid we should ever see the time, when all ranks, all 
 stations in this community, except the highest, were not open to all 
 men; and that we should ever reckon it of itself a circumstance even 
 of sucpicion in any person for neither sex can be exempt from an in- 
 ference of such a nature if it is once made general and absolute that 
 he has promoted an inferior to be his equal! Let me, however, re- 
 mind your lordships, that the rapidity of the promotion of Bergarni 
 has been greatly overstated; and the manner in which it took place is 
 a convincing proof, that the story of love having been the cause of it, 
 is inconsistent with the fact, Now, this I state, from a distinct recol- 
 lection of the dates in the evidence before you. Believe Majocchi or 
 Demont, and three weeks after Bergami's arrival in the household, he 
 was promoted to the Queen's bed. How was it with respect to her 
 board? Because, after that, he continued in the situation of courier; 
 he dined with the servants, and lived not even with the chamberlains; 
 certainly not with those gentlemen, for they were at her table, as usual. 
 Hecontinued to dine with theservants at Genoa; there, notwithstanding 
 Majocchi's story, is is proved to your lordships that lie did not dine 
 with Her Majesty. He continued as a courier, even after he had once 
 sat at Her Majesty's table by accident, by one of the accidents usual 
 in travelling. It appears even in the evidence, (believing it to be 
 true,) that the Queen sat at the table where he was for the space of one 
 day. He, however, still continued a courier; and it was only on the 
 eve of the long voyage, that he was admitted to her table, commen- 
 cing with the journey to Mont St. Gothard. He continued in his 
 situation of courier, still in livery, until, by degrees, he was promoted, 
 first to travel in a carriage of his own, instead of riding on horseback. 
 Then he was promoted occasionally to sit at the same table with the 
 Queen, and at last lie was appointed a chamberlain generally. My 
 lords, this is not consistent with the story told of Naples. Show me 
 the woman, particularly the amorous, the imprudent, the insane 
 woman her Majesty is described to be by these perjured witnesses, 
 who would have allowed her paramour, after indulging in all the 
 gratifications described at Naples, for weeks and months, to continue 
 for months, and almost for years, in an apparently menial capacity! 
 My lords, this is not the rapidity of pace with which love promotes 
 his favorite votaries; it much more resembles the sluggish progress 
 with which merit wends its way in the world, and in courts. He 
 was a man of merit, as you will hear in evidence if you put me 
 on calling any. He was not of the low origin he has been described 
 to be. lie was a person whose father held the situation of a landed 
 proprietor, though of moderate income, in the north of Italy. He had 
 got into diniculties, as has happened to many of the Italian gentry of 
 late years; and his son, if I mistake not, had sold the family estate, in 
 order to pay his father's debts. He was reduced but he was a re-
 
 QtTEEN CAROLINE. 131 
 
 duced gentleman. When he was in the service of General Pino he 
 was recognised as such. The General repeatedly favored him as 
 such: he has dined at his table, General Pino being Commander-in- 
 chief in the Milanese. He thus sat at the table of an Italian noble in 
 the highest station. He has dined at his table during the Spanish 
 campaigns. He was respected in his station he was esteemed by 
 those whom he served at that time. They encouraged him, as know- 
 ing his former pretensions and his present merits; and when he was 
 hired, he was proposed by a gentleman who desired to befriend and 
 promote him, an Austrian nobleman, then living in Italy, in the Aus- 
 trian service, he was proposed to the Queen's chamberlain as a courier, 
 there being a vacancy, and was hired without the knowledge of her 
 Majesty, and before she had even seen him. The Austrian nobleman, 
 when he offered him as a courier, said, he fairly confessed he hoped, 
 if Bergami behaved well, he might be promoted, because he was a 
 man whose family had seen better days, because he was a faithful ser- 
 vant, and because he had ideas belonging rather to his former than to 
 his present situation. It was almost a condition of his going, that he 
 should go for the present as a courier, with the expectation of soon 
 filling some other and higher place. 
 
 I do not dwell on this, my lords, as of any importance to the case; 
 for whether I shall think it necessary to prove what I have just stated 
 or not, I consider that I have already disposed of the case in the com- 
 ments which I have made upon the evidence, and in the appeal which 
 I have made to the general principles of criminal justice. But as 
 the conduct of Her Majesty has been so unsparingly scrutinised, and 
 as it is important to show that even impropriety existed not, where I 
 utterly defy guilt to be proved, I thought it requisite to dwell on this 
 prominent feature in the cause. If the "Queen had frequented com- 
 pnnies below her station if she had lowered her dignity if she had 
 followed courses which, though not guilty ones, might be deemed 
 improper in themselves and inconsistent with her high station if she 
 had been proved guilty of any unworthiness I could have trod upon 
 high ground still. But I have no occasion to occupy it. I say, guilt 
 there is none levity there is none unworthiness there is none. But 
 if there had been any of the latter, while I dared her accusers to the 
 proof of guilt, admitting levity and even indecorum, I might slill have 
 appealed to that which always supports virtue in jeopardy, the course 
 of her former life at home, among her own relations, before she was 
 frowned upon here while she had protection among you while she 
 had the most powerful of all protection, that of our late venerable 
 monarch. I hold in rny hand a testimonial which cannot be read, 
 and which I am sure will not be weighed, without the deepest sense 
 of its importance; above all, without a feeling of sorrow, when we 
 reflect upon the reign that has passed, and compare it with the rule 
 we live under. It is a melancholy proof more melancholy, because 
 we no longer have him who furnishes it amongst us but it is a proof 
 how that illustrious sovereign viewed her, whom ho knew bettor than 
 all others whom he loved more than all the rest of her family did
 
 132 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 even than those upon whose affection she had a greater claim nay, 
 whom he loved better than he did almost any child of his own. The 
 plainness, the honesty, the intelligible, and manly sense of this letter 
 are such, that I cannot refrain from the gratification of reading it. It 
 was written in 1S04: 
 
 "WINDSOR CASTLE, Nov. 13, 1804. 
 
 " MY DEAKEST DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AND NIECE: Yesterday,! and 
 the rest of my family had an interview with the Prince of Wales at 
 Kew. Care was taken on all sides to avoid all subjects of altercation 
 or explanation, consequently the conversation was neither instructive 
 nor entertaining; but it leaves the Prince of Wales in a situation to 
 show whether his desire to return to his family is only verbal or real" 
 (a difference which George III, never knew, except in others) 
 " which time alone, can show. 1 am not idle in my endeavors to make 
 inquiries that may enable me to communicate some plan for the ad- 
 vantage of the dear child you and me with so much reason must interest 
 ourselves in; and its effecting my having the happiness of living more 
 with you is no small incentive to my forming some ideas on the 
 subject; but you may depend on their being not decided upon without 
 your thorough and cordial concurrence, for your authority as mother 
 it is my object to support. 
 
 "Believe me, at all times, my dearest danghter-in-law and niece, 
 your most affectionate father-in-law and uncle, 
 
 " GEORGE R." 
 
 Such, my lords, was the opinion which this good man, not ignorant 
 of human affairs, no ill judge of human character, had formed of this 
 near and cherished relation: and upon which, in the most delicate 
 particulars, the care of his grand-daughter and the heir of his crown, 
 he honestly, really, and not in mere words, always acted. 
 
 I might now read to your lordships, a letter from his illustrious suc- 
 cessor, not written in the same tone of affection not indicative of the 
 same feelings of regard but by no means indicative of any want of 
 confidence, or at least of any desire harshly to trammel his Royal 
 Consort's conduct. I allude to a letter which has been so often before 
 your lordships in other shapes, that I may not think it necessary to 
 repeat it here. It is a permission to live apart, and a desire never to 
 come together again; the expression of an opinion, that their happi- 
 ness was better consulted, and pursued asunder; and a very plain 
 indication, that Her Majesty's conduct should at least not be watched 
 with all the scrupulousness, all the rigor, all the scrutinising agency, 
 which has resulted in bringing the present Bill of Pains and Penalties 
 before your lordships. [Cries of " Read, read!" Mr. Brougham 
 accordingly read the letter, as follows:] 
 
 "MADAM: As Lord Cholmondely informs me, that you wish I 
 would define in writing, the terms upon which we are to live, I shall 
 endeavor to explain myself upon that head with as much clearness
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 133 
 
 and with as much propriety as the nature of the subject will admit. 
 Our inclinations are not in our power, nor should either of us be held 
 answerable to the other, because nature has not made us suitable to 
 each other. Tranquil and comfortable society is, however, in our 
 power; let our intercourse, therefore, be restricted to that, and I will 
 distinctly subscribe to the condition which you require,* through Lady 
 Cholmondoly, that even in the event of any accident happening to 
 my daughter, which I trust Providence in its mercy will avert, I shall 
 not infringe the terms of the restriction, by proposing, at any period, a 
 connection of a more particular nature. I shall now finally close this 
 disagreeable correspondence, trusting, that, as we have completely 
 explained ourselves to each other, the rest of our lives will be passed 
 in uninterrupted tranquillity. I am, Madam, with great truth, very 
 sincerely yours, 
 
 " GEORGE P. 
 " WINDSOR CASTLE, April 30, 1796." 
 
 My lords, I do not call this, as it has been termed, a letter of license; 
 such was the the term applied to it, on the former occasion, by those 
 who are now, unhappily for the Queen, no more those who were 
 the colleagues and coadjutors of the present ministers but I think it 
 such an epistle as would make it mailer of natural wonderment to the 
 person who received it, that her conduct should ever after and espe- 
 cially the more rigorously the older the parties were growing become 
 the subject of the most unceasing and unscrupulous watching, prying, 
 spying, and investigation. 
 
 Such then, my lords, is this case. And again let me call on you, 
 even at the risk of repetition, never to dismiss for a moment from your 
 minds, the two great points upon which I rest my attack upon the 
 evidence; first, that the accusers have not proved the facts by the 
 good witnesses who were within their reach, whom they had no 
 shadow of pretext for not calling; and secondly, that the witnesses 
 whom they have ventured to call are, every one of them, irreparably 
 damaged in their credit. How, 1 again ask, is a plot ever to be dis- 
 covered, except by the means of these two principles? Nay, there 
 are instances, in which plots have been discovered, through the 
 medium of the second principle, when the first had happened to fail. 
 When venerable witnesses have been seen brought forward when 
 persons above all suspicion have lent themselves for a season to impure 
 plans when no escape for the guiltless seemed open, no chance of 
 safety to remain they have almost providentially escaped from the 
 snare by the second of those two principles; by the evidence break- 
 ing down where it was not expected to be sifted; by a weak point 
 being found, where no provision, from the attack being unforeseen, 
 had been made to support it. Your lordships recollect that great pas- 
 sage I say great, for it is poetically just and eloquent, even were it 
 
 * The Queen to her last hour positively denied ever having required any such 
 condition, or made any allusion to the subject of it. 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 134 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 not inspired in the Sacred Writings, where the elders had joined 
 themselves in a plot which had appeared to have succeeded, "for 
 that," as the book says, " they had hardened their hearts, and had 
 turned away their eyes, that they might not look at Heaven, and that 
 they might do the purposes of unjust judgments." But they, though 
 giving a clear, consistent, uncoritradicted story, were disappointed, 
 and their victim was rescued from their gripe, by the trifling circum- 
 stance of a contradiction about a tamarisk tree. Let not man call 
 those contradictions or those falsehoods which false witnesses swear 
 to from needless and heedless falsehood, such us Sacchi about his 
 changing his name or such as Demont about her letters such as 
 Majocchi about the banker's clerk or such as all the other contra- 
 dictions and falsehoods not going to the main body of the case, but to 
 the main body of the credit of the witnesses let not man rashly 
 and blindly, call these things accidents. They are just rather than 
 merciful dispensations of that Providence, which wills not that the 
 guilty should triumph, and which favorably protects the innocent! 
 
 Such, my lords, is the case now before you ! Such is the evidence 
 in support of this measure evidence inadequate to prove a debt 
 impotent to deprive of a civil right ridiculous to convict of the 
 lowest offence scandalous if brought forward to support a charge of 
 the highest nature which the law knows monstrous to ruin the 
 honor, to blast the name of an English Queen! What shall I say, 
 then, if this is the proof by which an act of judicial legislation, a 
 parliamentary sentence, an ex post facto law, is sought to be passed 
 against this defenceless woman? My lords, I pray you to pause. I 
 do earnestly beseech you to take heed! You are standing upon the 
 brink of a precipice then beware! It will go forth your judgment, 
 if sentence shall go against the Queen. But it will be the only judg- 
 ment you ever pronounced, which, instead of reaching its object, will 
 return and bound back upon those who gave it. Save the country, 
 my lords, from the horrors of this catastrophe save yourselves from 
 this peril rescue that country, of which you are the ornaments, but 
 in which you can flourish no longer, when severed from the people, 
 than the blossom when cut off from the roots and the stem of the tree. 
 Save that country, that you may continue to adorn it save the 
 Crown, which is in jeopardy the Aristocracy which is shaken save 
 the Altar, which must stagger with the blow that rends its kindred 
 Throne! You have said, my lords, you have willed the Church 
 and the King have willed that the Queen should be deprived of its 
 solemn service. She has instead of that solemnity, the heartfelt 
 prayers of the people. She wants no prayers of mine. But I do 
 here pour forth my humble supplications at the Throne of Mercy, 
 that that mercy may be poured down upon the people, in a larger 
 measure than the merits of its rulers may deserve, and that your 
 hearts may be turned to justice! 
 
 [Mr. Brougham finding the impression made by his case upon the 
 House to be very strong, resolved at once to present Mariette Bron
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE. 135 
 
 for examination, and instantly to call for judgment. With this view 
 he left the House to summon the witness; but she was not to be found; 
 Mr. Williams, therefore, proceeded with his truly able and, to the 
 elucidation of the case, invaluable argument; and afterwards some 
 suspicious circumstances came to the knowledge of Her Majesty's 
 advisers which made it impossible to call her maid with any regard 
 to the interests of justice.]
 
 SHORT ACCOUNT 
 
 OF 
 
 MR, DEN MAN'S SPEECH, 
 
 ON SUMMING UP THE EVIDENCE 
 
 FOR 
 
 THE QUEEN. 
 
 OCTOBER 24TH AND 25TH, 1820. 
 
 THE examination of Her Majesty's witnesses closed on the 23d of October, 
 when the counsel for the Bill applied for farther delay, in order that Colonel 
 Browne and others might be sent for, to contradict some parts of the evidence. 
 This proposal was treated as monstrous, and it was formally withdrawn. The 
 Queen's advocates indignantly exclaimed, that it showed as much regard for her 
 feelings, as if she had been the inanimate subject of some chemical experiment. 
 One or two trifling particulars were however allowed to be explained; and at eleven 
 o'clock on the following morning the evidence in this extraordinary process was at 
 length brought to a close. 
 
 The duty of summing up the Queen's case then devolved on her Solicitor-gene- 
 ral, Mr. Denman. The House of Lords offered him time for preparation: the 
 Chancellor invited and rather pressed him to accept it: he however preferred com- 
 mencing his address on the instant, when all particulars were fresh, in his own 
 memory, and in that of the judges. 
 
 Amidst all the filth and obscenity which overloaded the proceedings, some great 
 principles of public morality were prominently conspicuous. By far the greatest 
 point, the most important, the most fully estimated by the reflecting, the most 
 warmly felt by the multitude, was the prosecutor's disqualification. The example of 
 a husband punishing infidelity in a wife, whom in the very hour of marriage he 
 had insulted and openly abandoned whom he had replaced by a mistress, while 
 he offered to his consort an equal privilege who owed to her union with him 
 neither endearment, nor protection, nor common courtesy who knew in him no 
 one quality of a husband but his jealousy, and had indeed for twenty-four years 
 been only made aware of his existence by unceasing attempts to harass and de- 
 stroy her was an example which the world never before witnessed, and which 
 all classes except the House of Lords, determined should never be set in England. 
 
 That the prosecutor was the king of the country made the case the more flagrant. 
 This gave the proceedings the appearance of a deliberate sacrifice of the first prin-
 
 MR. DENMAN'S SPEECH. 137 
 
 ciples of morality to capricious hatred, engendered by the known instinct of anti- 
 pathy towards those we have wronged: it was regarded as one of those freaks of 
 bare-faced power, avouched by the will alone, which threatens the general security, 
 by sweeping away the bulwarks of religion and of justice. The flimsy pretence, 
 that the open scandal of the Queen's lite demanded public exposure, was refuted 
 at every point; first, by the absurdity of distinguishing for this purpose between 
 the wife of a King and the wife of a Prince Regent; secondly, by the ofler of 
 50,000/. a year, if she would pursue the same course any where out of England; 
 but lastly and most effectually, by the evidence given on the trial, when the inter- 
 course imputed, even if believed to be real, instead of being public and notorious, 
 was so cunningly contrived and so secretly carried on, that waiters from inns, 
 where Her Majesty reposed for a single night, were pressed into the service, to 
 repeat the observations made through key-holes and upon beds while those 
 domestic traitors who had daily means of knowledge, deposed but to two or three 
 occasions, on which, from suspicious circumstances and opportunities, guilt might 
 with some plausibility be inferred. 
 
 Other general considerations, inferior to these in importance, yet of a highly in- 
 teresting character, worked strongly on the public mind; the certainty that excited 
 passions in the great would be supplied with mean instruments of hostility; the 
 ease with which perjury and conspiracy are called into action by the immense 
 rewards that must be publicly proffered; the method of proceeding, so abhorrent 
 to the principles of the Constitution; the alarming readiness with which a minis- 
 terial majority had volunteered the invidious office of judging in a suit which ought 
 never to have been commenced, and could not go forward without incalculable 
 injury to morals and decency. All these matters, sinking deep in the minds of a 
 free, just, and enlightened people, were plainly discovered from the first to have 
 decided the fate of the measure, though the time and mode of its defeat were of 
 course doubtful. 
 
 At this important period, the opponents of the Bill of Pains and Penalties were 
 delighted to find that the evidence, so pompously paraded beforehand in private 
 pervading all society in whispers in the shape of rumors and reports reports from 
 diplomatic agents, communications from foreign ministers, statements by commis- 
 sioners at Milan, handed over in green bags to select committees, that the minds 
 of leading members of both houses might be debauched, before they should act in 
 the character of judges crumbled into dust and shrank to nothing, when exposed 
 to the open air. The case was an absolute failure; the witnesses when seen and 
 heard in public turned out to be worthy of their cause.* 
 
 Mr. Denman commenced his address by the most unqualified assertion of his 
 client's innocence. " I, therefore, with your lordship's permission, without further 
 preface, will proceed to make those observations upon the case, as it now lies be- 
 fore you, which have satisfied my own mind which have satisfied the minds of 
 all my learned friends which have satisfied, I think I may say, the minds of the 
 whole people of England, of all the civilised nations of the world, who are 
 anxiously looking on, to see this great and unexampled spectacle brought to a con- 
 clusion, that Her Majesty the Queen has established a defence, which entitles her 
 to a complete acquittal of all those charges which your lordships have permitted 
 yourselves to try against the conduct of that illustrious person." 
 
 Though it could hardly be expected that any body of men would, without neces- 
 sity, and against sound policy, have assumed the office of judges in this great aff.iir, 
 who were not predetermined to condemn, no chance of obtaining a verdict from 
 these adverse jurors was to be thrown away. And as, in some angry conflicts at 
 the bur, and some altercations even with members of the House itself, some degree 
 
 * That the opinion upon the treatment of the Q.uccn by her husband was not confined 
 to Her Majesty'* friends, appears from a note in Mr. Wilberforce's Journal, published in 
 liis Life by his Sons. " Heard a violent 8|H, % cch from Creevey, and another from Kennel, 
 speaking of the Queen's ill usii}jc when she first came to this country, and too truly aiat! 
 but where in the use of t.ilkinjr thus? Surely it can only tend t > produce insurrection. I 
 am glad, however, to hear that the Coronation will be probably put off. Oh what a com- 
 ment is all this on ' He euro your sin will find you out!' " Vol. v, p. G8.
 
 138 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 of personal irritation had been excited, Mr. Denman hastened to conciliate his 
 hearers by freely, voluntarily, and from his heart disclaiming all purpose of indi- 
 vidual offence. He rested his apology on a state of highly excited feeling that 
 soreness of mind produced by sympathy with the unprovoked sufferings of the 
 royal client. " It has not been my object to give uneasiness; but I have felt it 
 deeply. And it is impossible for any mind which comes with the right feelings of 
 a man to the contemplation of this case, not to expect the fullest indulgence for 
 any thing that may have passed in the course of it; because it is impossible not to 
 feel, that the illustrious client whose immediate interests are confided to our care, 
 has been, perhaps I might say from the first moment that she placed her foot in 
 this country to the hour at which I am now addressing your lordships, the victim 
 of cruel oppression, of grievous and irreparable wrong. My lords, that galling and 
 degrading sensation has attended us through the whole of these proceedings; it 
 must plead our excuse for anything that may have been wrong and disrespectful in 
 our manner. I trust I have said enough upon the subject; and I proceed to that 
 case which it is my duty to observe upon." 
 
 He then proceeded to analyse the preamble of the Bill, and was shortly after 
 engaged in investigating the proofs which had been offered to maintain it. This 
 compelled him to do in some instances what he always expressed the greatest de- 
 sire to avoid to tread in the steps of his leader. In the various preliminary dis- 
 cussions, where he had immediately followed Mr. Brougham, that gentleman had 
 handed over every subject to his hands, completely exhausted and bare. He com- 
 pared it to one Indian tribe which precedes another, but does not leave its hold upon 
 the district, till it has consumed all its produce by withering fire. There was 
 novelty, indeed, in the additional facts established by the witnesses for the accused, 
 and in contrasting them with the prosecutor's charges and testimony; but discus- 
 sions of this nature never can be accurately reported, and these have now lost all 
 interest for the general reader. 
 
 He observed on the only circumstance which could injure her Majesty, after the 
 evidence that had been heard the danger that the impression made by the original 
 statement should remain, in spite of the refutation the foul advantage possessed 
 by every calumniator of female chastity, that the name is polluted and dishonored 
 by revolting associations, though the world should be convinced of the falsehood 
 of every charge. After quoting a clever paper from the latest number of the Quar- 
 terly Review, to that effect, but applied to another subject, he proceeded: " It is un- 
 happily too true; and in a case where female honor is concerned, the very exis- 
 tence of the charge is, in some degree, as great a punishment as if it was distinctly 
 proved instead of being contradicted. The old adage, ' Calumniando semper all- 
 quid /tecni,' was never more distinctly made out, than in the present case. The 
 evidence of the infamous and diabolical persons brought forward against Her Ma- 
 jesty has had its effect; and although it has been disproved, I flatter myself, in a 
 manner so satisfactory that no reasonable mind can believe any one of the particular 
 charges adduced, still, the mere fact of their having been promulgated, will leave 
 suffering, which no reasoning, no time, no reparation, will ever be able to remove." 
 
 After casting some ridicule on the pretence set up by the officers of the Crown, 
 that they did not attend as advocates of any party, but merely as assisting the 
 House of Lords in the developement of truth, he remarked upon a solemn prayer 
 which had been uttered by the King's Solicitor-general, Sir John Copley,* that 
 the Queen's character might emerge clear from the inquiry " that Her Majesty 
 might be able to establish her full and certain innocence." " My lords, it was 
 gratifying to hear that prayer, the first that had been breathed for the welfare of 
 her Majesty in mind, body, or estate, by any one of the officers of her husband. 
 The omen was a happy one; the Queen owed thanks to my learned friend for his 
 pious and charitable supplication, and both were bound to pour them out to Heaven, 
 when they perceived ho\v amply it had been successful, at every step of the inquiry. 
 Such a prayer so granted, will no doubt be the first step towards restoring Her 
 Majesty's name to the ritual of the Church, from which it has been so illegally re- 
 moved. I cannot deal with one so devoutly anxious to see Her Majesty acquitted, 
 
 * Now Lord Lyndhurst.
 
 MR. DENMAN'S SPEECH. 139 
 
 in the same spirit in which it might he proper to approach other active promoters 
 of the persecution. To them I might whisper words of professional condolence on 
 their signal failure, hut my learned friend is to he greeted with felicitations at each 
 of the numerous points where a falsehood was detected, or a witness hroke down. 
 To them might he addressed the congralulation of Cicero to Catiline, when he sent 
 him forth to join the unprincipled crew of his conspirators. Others, indeed, might 
 blush to see collected around them 'conllatum improborum nianuiii,' but to my 
 learned friend who took no part in the contest, who wished only for impartial 
 inquiry, and prayed to Heaven that that inquiry might terminate in the triumph of 
 the accused, the discomfiture of his witnesses one after another must have yielded 
 unmixed satisfaction. ' Hie tu qua Iffititia perfruere, quihus gaudiis exultahis, 
 qua in voluptate bacchabere, cum in tanto numero tuorum comitum neque audies 
 virum bonum quenquam, neque videhis.' " 
 
 The next general observation applies to the impossibility of accounting for all 
 circumstances that may be scraped together to aid the inference of guilt, for two 
 reasons the lapse of time, and the fact of their belonging toihc conduct of another. 
 Who can explain ordinary events at the distance of six years] Still more, how 
 could an innocent lady be aware of the cause of any such proceedings in her ser- 
 vant, as excited suspicions of his deviations from propriety 1 ? Yet the demeanor of 
 Bergami, in the absence of the Princess, and many years before, was strained to 
 make out that pri ma facie case against her, which, if innocent, shu never could re- 
 move by explanations, because she must have been ignorant of the causes that 
 produced it. To infer guilt, then, from facts like these, is evidently not to prove 
 it, hut to assume it as proved, and reverse every reasonable principle of procedure. 
 
 One of the most marvellous features of a case so unique, touched on by Mr. 
 Brougham, was forcibly dwelt upon by Mr. Denrnan the corpus delicti itself 
 was never proved. Those who brought Barbara Kress from Carlsruhe, at a cost 
 ten times as great as her yearly wages, to prove one undefined stain upon a bed, 
 had also secured the laundress who for six long years must have constantly in- 
 spected the bed-linen and all the other linen of every individual member of the 
 family, and called her not as a witness. Annette Preising was in Cotton Garden, 
 in company with the rest of the witnesses; and the prosecutors dared not present 
 her testimony to the lords! 
 
 The facility with which conspiracies for false accusation may be formed and 
 kept together, was illustrated by examples both ancient and recent, both foreign 
 and domestic. Journals of our judicial proceedings yielded striking instances that 
 perjury is a marketable commodity even here. Roger North's memoir of his bro- 
 ther Sir Dudley, the Turkey merchant, showed that in semi-barbarous countries 
 the false witness is much more safely to be relied on than the true " Our merchant 
 found by experience (he says) that in a direct fact a false witness was a surer card 
 than a true one; for if the judge has a mind to baffle a testimony, an honest harm- 
 less witness, that doth not know his play, cannot so well stand his many captious 
 questions as a false witness used to the trade will do; for he hath been exercised, 
 and is prepared for such handling, and can clear himself when the other will bo 
 confounded." 
 
 Nor is the subject of discarded servants passed over in silence, with their unre- 
 stricted means of confirming falsehood by truth, and engrafting it on realities or 
 the influence of money over mean men, undeservedly admitted to situations of con- 
 fidence or the power of importunity in the great to command the services of their 
 creatures for the ruin of their victims, when the lowest passions are at work in tho 
 highest places. Thus we are told by the Comte de (Jrammont, that when James 
 Duke of York wished to renounce the wife whom he had married in exile, tho 
 daughter of the great Karl of Clarendon, four of his friends, gentlemen of tho 
 highot rank, met together to consult on the best means of effecting so just and 
 rational an object, and three of them determined to declare, if required, in public 
 and writing, that .she had thrown off in their presence the restraints of modesty and 
 decorum, and tho fourth that ho had enjoyed the last favor a woman can bestow, 
 adding in the g;iiety of their hearts, that he must he a cold-hearted friend who 
 could hesitate to give such easy proofs of his attachment.
 
 140 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 The symptoms of fabricating facts and training witnesses, by the discipline of 
 drilliiio- and rehearsal, were strongly brought to light. The Sicilian skipper and 
 his nephew were selected to make out the case of open indecency on board of the 
 polacca; the part assigned to Majocchi and Demont was the proof of adulterous 
 intercourse on shore; both sets of witnesses were in the vessel, but the latter set 
 saw nothing of the libidinous excesses denounced by the former. The latter, in- 
 deed, during the three following years, saw no decisive facts, but much cause for 
 unfavorable surmise. The wanton lovers who, at sea, exposed their careless em- 
 braces to every eye, suddenly when on shore became models of cautious prudence. 
 Thus the evidence given by each set of witnesses, taken separately, however 
 improbable, was in no degree inconsistent; but the facts deposed to by both sets 
 were so utterly inconsistent with all our experience of human nature, that both 
 could not be true, and of course neither could be trusted. 
 
 One great defect in the case against Queen Caroline, was the necessity of prov- 
 ing it by foreigners. Beyond the reach of satisfactory inquiry, removed from the 
 influence of that public opinion to which they were accustomed, and to which the 
 most shameless of mankind pay a reluctant and involuntary deference, the tempta- 
 tion to earn high rewards by unscrupulous evidence, was generally felt, and their 
 sense of the obligation of an oath more than doubted. Like every other general 
 observation in this remarkable case, it was exemplified by particular incidents that 
 occurred. 
 
 One of the Queen's witnesses was William Carrington, a servant of Sir Will- 
 iam Cell, who directly contradicted Majocchi in several material facts, involving 
 assertions deliberately made by himself. " William Carrington had no sooner 
 left this bar," said Mr. Denman, " with the universal confidence and approbation 
 of every honest man who saw and heard him, than the materials for his cross- 
 examination are prepared by whom] Not by the agent, or attorney, or commis- 
 sioner, but by a member of your Lordships' House, a powerful member of the 
 government in a word, by the First Lord of the Admiralty. Carrington described 
 himself as having been a midshipman in the Poitiers, and as havingleft the service 
 with the good opinion of his former captain, that gallant officer, Sir John Beresford. 
 He was cross-examined with the greatest minuteness, with the advantage of 
 searching the ship's books, and of communicating with his captain, who is brought 
 to town for the purpose out of Yorkshire. Do I complain of this"? By no means. 
 If it were not irregular, I would tender my thanks to the noble lord for the ability 
 and zeal with which he conducted the cross-examination. It ended in proving the 
 witness's account of himself strictly true, and his captain bore willing testimony 
 to his good qualities. He illustrates in his person the remark of a German travel- 
 ler in this country, that gentlemen were found in every class of society; wherever 
 that man's lot may be cast, he is a gentleman of nature's making. What, if we 
 had possessed the same advantage"? The same power of searching and inquiring] 
 Would the result have been the same with the Sacchis, the Rastellis, the Gug- 
 giarisT' 
 
 There were two passages in this speech of so remarkable a nature, that they 
 cannot be omitted in any notice of it; those which assailed two royal personages, 
 the King then upon the throne, and his immediate successor, at that time Duke of 
 Clarence. The former exposed himself to personal attack by the prosecution; he 
 challenged inquiry into his conduct as a husband, which was indeed an essential 
 part of his own case. Nor was it possible to refrain from canvassing the examples 
 of similar proceedings in former times, and while some points in the history of 
 Henry VIII bore a general resemblance to the accusation, an almost exact parallel 
 was found between the accused and the Roman Empress Octavia. Dr. Parr 
 pointed out the identity of their fortunes to Mr. Denman the capricious offence 
 taken in the very moment of their union, the adoption of a mistress in her place, 
 the desertion, the investigation, the exile, the triumphant return amidst the accla- 
 mations of the people, the renewed inquiry, the false evidence screwed out of her 
 domestics, not indeed by bribes but by torture. The likeness failed at the point 
 where the principal witness in each case betrayed her personal character. The 
 French soubrette swearing to the falsehood of her former panegyrics on the bene-
 
 MR. DENMAN'S SPEECH. 141 
 
 factress she sought to destroy, the Roman attendant hurling the boldest defiance 
 and invective at the commissioner, who grossly aspersed the purity of her imperial 
 mistress. 
 
 In laying before the Lords the wrongs of his client in the burning words of Taci- 
 tus, and fixing on this prosecution the just odium of so shameful a prototype, Mr. 
 Demnan incurred some censure. He was condemned for "calling the King Nero," 
 by those who without emotion heard the counsel for the prosecution apply to the 
 party under trial, the name of Messalina. He was, with Mr. Brougham, after the 
 Queen's death, stript of the rank they owed to their offices under her Majesty; and 
 all her counsel remained for years excluded from their fair professional advance- 
 ment. At length all were restored except Mr. Denman; and it then appeared that 
 he was visited with the royal displeasure, not for this parallel hut for a sentence 
 from Dio Cassius,* mistakingly supposed by his Majesty to have been applied 
 offensively to him. In the autumn of 1828, Mr. Denman's memorial, disclaiming 
 the imputation, was at his request laid before the King by his then prime minister 
 the Duke of Wellington, who went much farther, and with difficulty obtained from 
 the reluctant monarch, that rank which the advocate had not solicited at his hands. 
 If " Peace hath her victories not less renowaed than War," this persevering effort 
 of a frank and generous spirit, prompted by a sense of justice, and stimulated by 
 the manly perception of the necessity for independence in the advocate, may be 
 thought to add some lustre even to the name of Wellington. 
 
 The other passage above alluded to, is a vehement invective against the Duke of 
 Clarence whose known devotion to his elder brother led him into the ready cre- 
 dence of facts derogatory to Her Majesty, which he had the imprudence to circulate 
 in conversation, and among the peers then engaged in what was called her trial. 
 The necessity of counteracting this influence was apparent, but the reproof must 
 have given pain to him who uttered it, when in after years the sovereign showed 
 an entire absence of resentment for the offence given to him while a subject. Wil- 
 liam the Fourth, blessed with the immeasurable advantages of education and inter- 
 course among the middling classes of society, had the sense and candor to perceive 
 that the sufferer from the performance of the duty of an advocate has no just right 
 to complain. He received Mr. Denman with marked civility at his first levee after 
 his accession to the throne; acquiesced withont hesitation in his appointment as 
 Attorney-general, on the change of government in November 1830; two years 
 afterwards, consigned to him as chief justice, " the balance and the sword," and 
 expressed the utmost pleasure in acceding to Lord Grey's application to raise him 
 to the peerage. 
 
 Numerous portions of the evidence were selected for comment, and towards the 
 conclusion of the whole argument, the following passage occurs: " We have been 
 told of the Queen's general conduct, as furnishing decisive proof of her guilt. My 
 lords, I will abide by that test, and appeal to her general conduct as establishing 
 her innocence. I ask you whether it is possible, if she were degraded by the in- 
 dulgence of that low passion, that she should in the first place discard every one of 
 the servants as soon as they were possessed of her fatal secret, and that she should 
 afterwards have been willing to renounce her paramour. Look to all that we know 
 of human nature. The most certain consequence of indulging such an attachment 
 is, that all worldly considerations are lost sight of. " Not Cicsar's empress would 
 she deign to prove." No, having become the partner in guilt of her menial ser- 
 vant, she would have preferred his society in the lowest retreat of vice on the Con- 
 tinent, to all the dignity, the wealth and splendor, which the world could have laid 
 at her feet. iShe was not required, however, to make the sacrifice. All tho com- 
 forts and luxuries were obtruded upon her acceptance, with full permission to enjoy 
 them at 1'esaro, or on the lake of Como, and at tho same time repose in those em- 
 braces fur which she is charged with surrendering her honor. Does she atvept tho 
 offer? She disdains it, and plants herself on the shore of Kiighuul, and challenges 
 the proof that all tho power of ICngland can produce against her, because she knows 
 that the truth will bear her through, and because she values character more than all 
 other possessions, including lifu itself. 
 
 * Sec Ha) lii's Dictionary, art. Ocluvic.
 
 142 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 " Contrast her general conduct with that of her accusers! The death of her only 
 child is followed by a frightful conspiracy to effect her ruin. The death of her 
 last remaining protector, whose name was still in some degree her safeguard, 
 though his affection could no longer be displayed, that death was announced to her 
 in no terms of kind condolence or common respect, or decent ceremony. That 
 was the occasion when the Cardinal Gonsalvi. knowing whom he should please, 
 and what schemes were in progress, ventured to forestate the decision of the par- 
 liament on the Bill that now engages its attention. With him she was neither a 
 Queen, on the death of her husband's father, nor a Princess of Wales, as she had 
 been till that event, but he strips her of all down to the title she had before her 
 marriage. The first Gazette which records the change of rulers, inflicts a wound 
 on her who is become the first subject of the realm. Of the new reign an era 
 marked hitherto by mercy and forgiveness, when even traitors are spared and felons 
 pardoned, and the amiable prerogative of the crown called into lavish use the first 
 act of that reign is the most illegal and unchristian in the annals of the monarchy; 
 the second is this Bill, a bill of divorce and degradation against the consort of the 
 King, introduced by his ministers. 
 
 "And now, my lords, what is to become of this Bill'? Or rather what has be- 
 come of it! As a Bill of Divorce it was defeated before it was read a first time; 
 the mere fact of a six years' residence abroad, permitted by the husband, answers 
 his claim for a divorce, whatever the misconduct of the wife. That letter of 
 license, so recently after the marriage, and so spontaneously granted, is of itself an 
 answer to it as a bill for a divorce. As a Bill of Pains and Penalties a bill of 
 dethronement and degradation it still lingers on your lordships' table; if you see 
 fit to gratify the motives that impelled the charge, if you have the nerve to proceed 
 against the persecuted and injured woman who has so manfully met it, I can only 
 say it is at your pleasure so to do. But I am confident that your honor, your jus- 
 tice, your humanity, will force you to take part with the oppressed, and not give 
 the victory to those who have so wantonly oppressed her." 
 
 In the course of explaining why some witnesses who might have been expected 
 for the defence had not appeared, he took occasion to introduce the name of Ber- 
 gami. " Our case is already proved, and we do not think that either expediency 
 or justice requires us to overload these Minutes of Evidence, already too vast and 
 unwieldy to be well considered in their important details, with needless testimony. 
 We cannot admit that we are bound to go one step farther. We have heard the 
 challenges and defiances of our opponents. \Ve have been told that Bergami 
 might be produced as a witness in our exculpation, but we knew this to be a fiction 
 of lawyers, which common sense and natural feeling would reject. The very call 
 is one of the unparalleled circumstances of this extraordinary case. From the 
 beginning of the world, no instance is to be found of a party accused of adultery 
 being called as a witness to disprove it. We are told, forsooth, that he knows the 
 truth as to that imputed fact, and ought to depose in denial of it at this bar, if it is 
 untrue. The answer is in a word there is a case against us, or there is none; if 
 none, we have no occasion to repel it by witnesses, and if there is a case, no man 
 will regard the denial of the adulterer. How shameful an inquisition would the 
 contrary practice engender! Great as is the obligation to veracity, the circum- 
 stances might raise a doubt in the most conscientious mind whether it ought to 
 prevail. Mere casuists might dispute with plausible arguments on either side, 
 but the natural feelings of mankind would be likely to triumph over their moral 
 doctrines. Supposing the existence of guilt, perjury itself would be thought venial 
 in comparison with the exposure of a confiding woman. It follows that no such 
 question ought in any case to be administered, nor such temptation given to tamper 
 with the sanctity of oaths. My learned friends will not, I believe, show a case in 
 which such a witness has been received or even tendered; and if not, the rule for 
 his exclusion must be founded in principles too deeply seated in the nature and 
 heart of man, to be repealed even upon this occasion, when a culpable com- 
 plaisance to power lias brought about so many other sacrifices of principle." 
 
 He proceeded to advert to a subject of extreme delicacy the motives by which 
 the House of Lords might be supposed to be actuated, in taking either course. 
 " May I add one word more] I know that a suspicion has gone abroad at least,
 
 MR. DENMAN'S SPEECH. 143 
 
 that it has existed within these walls that a low rabble had been encouraged to 
 make demonstrations in Her Majesty's favor, and that all the public appearances 
 were to be so accounted for. But the same person who used that expression, was 
 obliged to admit in a few weeks the truth which could not be concealed, that the 
 whole of the generous English people had taken her part. Such is the indisputable 
 feeling among all the soundest and best, the middle classes of society. There 
 may, for aught 1 know, be apostles of mischief brooding in some corners, watching 
 to strike a blow at the Constitution, and not unwilling to avail themselves of any 
 opportunity for fomenting open violence. If that be so, consider, my lords, that 
 the righteous verdict of acquittal which I confidently expect, will at once gratify 
 these generous feelings and tend to the security of the state, and baffle those mis- 
 chievous projectors by taking the weapon from their hand. That just judgment 
 pronounced in the face of the Crown, will endear your lordships to your country, 
 by showing your resolution to discharge your duty. On the other hand, the dis- 
 appointment of the well-affected would produce that settled discontent so dangerous 
 to the peace and permanency of institutions, which every patriot ought to regard 
 with apprehension. The violence of an incensed mob could lead only to personal 
 inconvenience, which I know how your lordships would despise. But 1 beseech you 
 let not the fear of having that fear imputed to you, bias your minds in favor of an 
 unjust conviction. This would be the worst iniquity of all, the basest kind of 
 cowardice. Weigh then the evidence and the arguments calmly and impartially, 
 and if your understandings are satisfied that all which may once have appeared 
 important has been scattered 'like dew drops from the lion's mane,' if the wit- 
 nesses for the prosecution shrink to nothing on examination if their strongest 
 facts are borrowed from their adversaries, but can only be tortured into proof of 
 guilt by detaching them from the whole mass of their evidence your lordships 
 will never pause to speculate whether your course may be pleasing or displeasing 
 to what, in the jargon of the day, (which I detest,) some call a radical mob: you 
 will think of nothing but the ascertainment of truth, and having ascertained it, 
 will, without any regard to consequences, pursue the straight path to which the 
 principles of eternal justice point." 
 
 Having discussed portions of the evidence very fully, and interwoven much of 
 general argument on the great features of the case, Mr. Denman alluded to "the 
 mighty efforts of his great leader," and proceeded to demand a verdict of acquittal 
 for their illustrious client. His peroration was not nor could be accurately reported, 
 at the close of so long a speech, in the journals of the day, which have been copied 
 into the Parliamentary debates; but it was nearly as follows: 
 
 "In the earlier stages of this proceeding, my lords, when we more than once 
 remonstrated against your entertaining the charge, and afterwards on the second 
 reading, when we were permitted to assail the principle of the Bill, we urged upon 
 you the powerful reasons which should have deterred the accuser from undertaking 
 that office, and your lordships from a voluntary assumption of so awful a respon- 
 sibility. After earnestly deprecating the hard if not dangerous duty of directing 
 strong personal censures against those whose stations might have averted them, if 
 their own conduct had not invited and made them necessary, I trust that we have 
 neither shrunk from that duty, nor indulged in needless invectives. \Ve were 
 bound to exact that 'he who would' affect to 'bear the sword of heaven' should 
 not be more severe than holy to show that against an exiled wife the husband 
 has no right of divorce that of licensed deviations from conjugal fidelity, the self- 
 indulgent husband cannot with decency complain that consequently all inquiry 
 into the truth of the charges would be but a fruitless waste of time, a wanton 
 offence to public morality, a gratuitous ha/arding of the respect due to this august 
 assembly, by overstraining its constitutional powers. 
 
 " All these considerations your lordships were pleased to overrule, and to disdain 
 the warnings we presumed to offer. You have received the charges; you have con- 
 stituted yourselves the judges of the proofs on which they rest. But the personal 
 topics cannot even now be thrown aside they are inseparably interwoven with 
 every part of this unhappy proceeding. Though rejected by your lordships, in 
 your legislative capacity, us motives for declining the inquiry, they cannot bo dis-
 
 144 QUEEN CAROLINE. 
 
 missed from your minds in the character of jurymen, wherein you are now to pro- 
 nounce your verdict upon the evidence. 
 
 "Remember then, my lords, the feelings of hostility in which this inquiry com- 
 menced, and with which it has now for many years been carried on. Remember 
 the powers that have been embarked in it. The wealth of a royal treasury un- 
 sparingly applied the aid of state alliances freely administered the learning and 
 talents, and zeal, and experience, the knowledge of the world, especially the worst 
 part of the world, which have been so long at work, unrestrained by a single 
 scruple. Your own observation has marked the instruments and the materials 
 with which and upon which the work has been performed. The hosts of discarded 
 servants have played their several parts on this theatre, and have exhibited their 
 resolution to earn the enormous price of their testimony, by an absolute reckless- 
 ness as to its truth. Which of your lordships would have chosen to stand such 
 an ordeal 1 ? Which of you would expose to it any of your female relatives, or even 
 your sons, now perhaps sojourning in the countries where the scene is laid? Eut 
 that ordeal has been passed, and without harm to the destined victim. 
 
 "The inquiry is without example in the history of the civilised world. This 
 illustrious lady has been searched out and thoroughly known; her down-sitting and 
 her uprising have been completely watched; no step she has taken no word she 
 has uttered not a look not a thought has escaped her prying, assiduous, and 
 malignant enemies. Guilt if it had existed must have been proved to the entire 
 conviction of every understanding; and the absence of such positive and over- 
 whelming proof is the establishment of unquestionable innocence. 
 
 "Your lordships are indeed engaged in an inquisition of the most solemn kind. 
 I know nothing in the whole circle of human affairs I know nothing in the view 
 of eternity, that can be likened to this affecting occasion, except that great day 
 when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed. And if you have been armed 
 with weapons and powers, and have used them, which Omniscience itself possesses 
 indeed but never employs, for bringing to light the shameful secret of Her Ma- 
 jesty's guilt, but no guilt has been made manifest, and the opposite alternative 
 results, you will feel that some duty is imposed upon you, of humbly endeavoring 
 to imitate also the divine wisdom, justice, and benevolence, which said even to 
 that culprit whose guilt was exposed and acknowledged, but against whom no 
 accuser could come forward to condemn her 'Neither do I condemn thee. Go 
 and sin no more!' "* 
 
 * The Editors of this work have had the greatest satisfaction in being favored with the 
 preceding pages of remark and correction upon the very eminent Judge's speech, from 
 the only authentic quarter. It is deeply to be lamented that the whole of that great per- 
 formance has not been thus nrcscrved.
 
 THE PRIVY COUNCIL, 
 
 IN SUPPORT OF 
 
 THE QUEEN-CONSORT'S RIGHT TO BE CROWNED 
 WITH THE KING. 
 
 JULY 5, 1821. 
 
 THE question referred to the decision of the Privy Council is, 
 Whether or not the Queen-Consort of this realm is entitled as of right 
 to be crowned when the King celebrates the solemnity of his corona- 
 tion and this is a question of constitutional law, to be determined 
 by the principles which regulate public rights; but it may derive 
 illustration from those which regulate the rights of private persons. 
 
 First of all, the history of the ceremony must be examined, not as 
 a matter of antiquarian curiosity, but because coronation is the crea- 
 ture of precedent, and rests rather upon practice than principle, 
 although the reason of it nlso may be traced. If it shall be found that 
 the custom of crowning Queens-Consort has been uniform and unin- 
 terrupted, or (which is the same thing) that the Queen-Consort has 
 always been crowned, unless in cases where there existed some insu- 
 perable obstacle, and in cases where she voluntarily declined it, the 
 right will be established in the largest sense. Hut for the purpose of 
 the present argument, it would be sufficient to demonstrate a more 
 limited proposition of fact, viz., that the Queen-Consort has in all 
 cases been crowned if married to the King at the time of his coro- 
 nationa proposition not the less true, if a case should be found 
 where, from peculiar circumstances, she declined it. 
 
 In an ordinary question it would not be necessary to go back be- 
 yond the reign of Richard I, the period of legal memory; but for the 
 present purpose it is bettor to ascend as high as authentic history 
 reaches. Some have doubted whether the Saxon queens, in the early 
 VOL. i. 13
 
 146 ARGUMENT FOR THE QUEEN'S CORONATION. 
 
 stages of the heptarchy, were crowned; no one denies that they were 
 so in the later periods. There is no occasion for inquiring into the 
 practice when a successful warrior was held up to his followers in 
 the field upon a buckler, and hailed as king among a crowd of 
 soldiers, and in the necessary absence of his family. But as often 
 as the solemnity assumed the form of a civil observance, the Consort 
 appears to have shared its honors. As early as the year 784, Edel- 
 burga, the wife of Brichtrich, King of the West Saxons, having been 
 guilty of attempts against her husband's life, the Queens of Wessex 
 were " deprived of all titles, majesty, and royalty," which Spelman 
 and Selden understand to have included coronation; and this was 
 effected by an express law. How long it remained in force is uncer- 
 tain; but in 856, Judith, the wife of Ethehvolf, of the same kingdom, 
 was crowned at Rheims, and afterwards received with royal honors 
 in England. (Selden, Tit. Hon. cap. 6; Speed, p. 300; and Carte, 
 i. 295.) Mr. Selden, referring to the universality of the practice in 
 all other kingdoms, says, that " the Saxon Queens, were in the late 
 times crowned like other Queens, so that the law of the West Saxons 
 was soon repealed;" as if it were a solitary exception to the general 
 rule in those times. In the Cotton MS. there is a document purport- 
 ing to be the order of the coronation of JEthelred II in 978; but 
 Mr. Selden treats it as a general ceremonial for the Saxon corona- 
 tions, and, says that he had seen it in a hand-writing six hundred years 
 old, which (as he wrote at the beginning of the 17th century) would 
 make the MS. at least as old as Canute. (Tit. Hon. c. S.) All sub- 
 sequent coronations have followed this order, and its words are 
 remarkable. The ceremony is first described for the King and then 
 follows the Queen's, as matter of course: "Finit consecratio Regis: 
 quam sequitur consecratio Reginse, quoe propter-honorificentiam ab 
 episcopo sacri unguinis oleo super verticem perfundenda est, et in 
 ecclesia coram optimatibus cum condigno honore, et regia celsitudine, 
 inregalis thori consortium, benedicenda et consecranda est;quce etiam 
 annulo, pro integritate fidei, et corona pro eeternitatis gloria deco- 
 randa est." So much was the coronation of the Consort deemed a 
 necessary part of the solemnity. And in other countries it was so 
 held likewise. Even in France, where the Salic law excluded females 
 from the succession to the imperial crown, they received the honors 
 of the crown matrimonial: their coronation was performed regularly 
 at St. Denys, the King being crowned at Rheims. A Pontificale is 
 extant, prescribing the order of the solemnity, confirmed by a bull of 
 Clement VIII. 
 
 Advancing to the Kings of the Norman line, it is necessary to look 
 more minutely into the particular instances. William the Conqueror 
 was married, about eleven years before the conquest, to Matilda, who 
 did not come over with him, and was not crowned till 1068. He was 
 crowned on Christmas day 1066, with as little delay as possible 
 after his victory, in order to obtain a more secure title than he thought 
 the sword would give him. The unsettled state of his new kingdom 
 occupied him incessantly for some time, and he was obliged to make
 
 ARGUMENT FOR THE QUEEN*S CORONATION. 147 
 
 T 
 
 frequent visits to his Norman dominions; but as soon as he could 
 carry Matilda to England she was crowned, and without any delay. 
 She came after Easter, and on the next great feast of Whitsunday, 
 " Aldredus, Ebor. Arch, in reginamconsecravit." (Flor. Worcester, 
 1090). In this, as in other cases of a like description, before the reign 
 of Henry III, it is doubtful whether the King was himself crowned 
 a second time at his Queen's coronation. 
 
 William Rufus having been elected by the Barons in council upon 
 his father's death, to the exclusion of his elder brother, was crowned 
 immediately after; he died unmarried. 
 
 Henry I was crowned August 5, 1100, four days after his brother's 
 death. He was then unmarried; but having espoused Matilda, llth 
 November of the same year she was crowned, according to the Chron. 
 Saxonicum, 209. cd. Gibs, on the feast of St. Martin; and therefore 
 the coronation appears to have been performed as speedily as possible, 
 or at the same time with the marriage. When the marriage of a queen, 
 or her arrival in England, happened during the interval between two 
 great feasts of the church, the coronation was somewhat delayed in 
 consequence. In 1121, Henry married Alice of Louvain, who was 
 crowned July 30th of that year. 
 
 Stephen was elected by the prelates and Barons, and crowned 22d 
 December 1135. He swore upon this occasion to maintain the church 
 and nobility in their possessions, and the oath of allegiance taken to 
 him was a qualified one. The prelates swore to be faithful no longer 
 than he should support the church; the barons, after their example, 
 swore fealty on condition of his performing his covenants with them. 
 His Queen was crowned the 22d of March following having been, 
 left abroad, in all likelihood, while the first struggles for the throne 
 occupied her Consort and his followers. 
 
 Henry II was crowned December 19,1154; his Queen Eleanor, 
 is distinctly stated to have been crowned with him, by Gervase of 
 Canterbury, (Script. Hist. Jlng. 1377,) a high authority upon this 
 point, being a contemporary, a monk of the abbey, and author of the 
 <tfcti($ Pontificum Cantuctriensium, Others say she was crowned 
 in 115S, referring probably to Henry's second or third coronation, of 
 which she partook with him. But there was a remarkable incident 
 in his reign, touching which no difference of opinion exists. He was 
 pleased to have his eldest son, Prince Henry, crowned in 1170, and 
 the ceremony was performed without the participation of his Princess, 
 Margaret, a daughter of France. Her father, Louis, complained of 
 the omission took up arms against England and put in the front 
 of his causes of war, that Margaret had not been crowned with her 
 husband. A meeting of the sovereigns and an accomodation took 
 placo; it was agreed that justice should be done to the princess; 
 and an archbishop and two bishops being sent over from France, 
 crowned her, together with her husband, at Winchester, in 1172. 
 
 Richard I was twice crowned, but never when married, at least in 
 England; for he was only betrothed to Alice, whom he refused to 
 marry, and Berenguella (or Berengaria) of Sicily, whom lie espoused
 
 148 ARGUMENT FOR THE QUEEN J S CORONATION. 
 
 at Cyprus, never came to England. No wife of his, therefore, was 
 ever within the four seas; but as if the marriage arid her coronation 
 were necessarily connected together, the two ceremonies were per- 
 formed nearly at the same time in Cyprus. 
 
 His successor, King John, had two wives Arvisa of Gloucester, 
 and Isabella; the latter of whom only is known for certain to have 
 been crowned, and immediately after her marriage. If Arvisa was 
 not crowned also a fact which cannot be proved the reason may 
 be easily given. John came over in great haste to seize on the crown; 
 he left his duchess in Normandy, and arriving at Hastings on the 25th 
 of May, 1199, reached London on the 26th, and was crowned the 
 day after. Disturbances immediately broke out in his duchy; and on 
 the 19th of June lie was obliged to hasten back. Before those trou- 
 bles were composed, he was smitten with the charms of Isabella, and 
 pursued measures for obtaining a divorce from Arvisa, if indeed he 
 had not, as some historians contend, already commenced those pro- 
 ceedings. Certain it is, that the reason for dissolving the marriage 
 was not now for the first time broached, the archbishop who solem- 
 nised it having at the moment protested against its validity, upon the 
 ground of consanguinity. Now, Arvisa, from the time of John's ac- 
 cession till her divorce never was in England ; and the process of divorce 
 began almost immediately after his coronation. She may have been 
 crowned abroad; there is no evidence against it; the ceremony was 
 so much a matter of course, that chroniclers may well have been 
 silent on it; but if it never took place, the circumstances satisfac- 
 torily explain the omission. 
 
 Thus from the Conquest to the reign of King John inclusive, there 
 were eight coronations performed on account of kings, and for the 
 purpose of honoring or of recognising them. During the same period 
 there are as many coronations of Queens known to have been solem- 
 nised on their account alone, and for the purpose of honoring or of 
 recognising them, independent of their consorts; at least, if the King 
 on such occasions repeated the ceremony of his own coronation, the 
 principal object of the solemnity was crowning the Queen, he having 
 himself been crowned before. 
 
 Henry III was unmarried when, at his accession in 12 16, and after- 
 wards in 1220, he was crowned. On the 14th January, 1236, he 
 married Eleanor of Provence, and six days after she was crowned 
 alone, as appears by the Red Book in the Exchequer. He attended, 
 wearing his crown, as we there learn, but he was only a spectator; 
 and M. Paris (355. ed. 1684,) relates that the sword of St. Edward, 
 called the curtcine, was borne before him by the Marshal, in token of 
 his right to restrain the king if he should do amiss (in signum quod 
 Regem, si oberret, habeat de jure potestatem cohibendi). So entirely 
 was the queen the principal personage at this solemnity. 
 
 Edward I was crowned August 19, 1274, with his Queen Eleanor: 
 in 1291 he married Margaret of France, at Canterbury, where, in all 
 probability she was crowned. There being no evidence of the event, 
 is no argument against its having happened, when the regularity with
 
 ARGUMENT FOR THE QUEEN'S CORONATION. 149 
 
 which Queens were crowned on their marriage, is considered; and 
 in Henry the Seventh's time, it was distinctly asserted and never con- 
 tradicted, that no Queen, since the Conquest, had ever been debarred 
 of this right. 
 
 Edward II and his Queen Isabella were crowned together, July 
 25, 130S; and Edward III, being unmarried, was crowned alone, 
 July 26, 1326; but a year after, he married Philippa, who was crown- 
 ed alone in April 1327. A proclamation is preserved in the Close 
 Roll in the Tower, summoning the Barons of the Cinque Ports, to 
 attend and perform the canopy service, as they were wont at other 
 coronations. This is the same proclamation which issues to summon 
 the Barons at the coronation of kings alone, or of kings with their 
 consorts. 
 
 Richard II was crowned July 16, 1377, and he married January 
 14, 1382, his first wife, Anne, who was crowned on the 22d of the 
 same month. In the twentieth year of his reign, (1397) he married 
 Isabella, who was then crowned alone, as appears from the Close 
 Roll in the Tower. An order is there preserved, to the Sheriffs of 
 London, to make proclamation summoning " all persons who, by rea- 
 son of their tenures or otherwise, were bound to perform any services 
 on the days of the coronation of Queens of England, to do the same 
 at the coronation of the King's consort as usual." In the Coif. MS. 
 in Brit. Mus. Tib. E. 8. 37, is an account of the duties of officers 
 at the coronation, temp. Ric. 2. The duty of keeper of the Ward- 
 robe is there set forth: "Idem custos eodem modo in Coronatione 
 Reginae, si sit coronata cum Rege, sive sola sit coronata," &c. 
 
 Henry IV was crowned October 13, 1399. His first wife, Mary of 
 Bohun, having died tn 1394, he afterwards married Joanna, who was 
 crowned in 1403. His son and successor Henry V was crowned in 
 1413; but having in 1421, married Katherine of France, he came 
 over to England for the purpose, among other things, of attending her 
 coronation. She was crowned alone, as appears from the Clo.se Roll 
 in the Tower, where a summons remains to all persons to attend and 
 perform services "at the Coronation of Katherine Queen of England, 
 the King's Consort." 
 
 Henry VI, having succeeded his father when an infant of a few 
 months old, was first crowned in his ninth year, 1429, and afterwords 
 at Paris in 1431. In 1445, he married Margaret, who was cro\vned 
 alone on the 30th of May, with the usual pomp. 
 
 The materials of Scottish history do not enable us to trace the coro- 
 nation of the Queen-Consort with such precision: but there can be no 
 doubt that it was as punctually and solemnly performed as that of the 
 sovereign. This may safely be inferred from the peculiar provisions 
 of the law of Scotland, touching the Queen's privileges. There she 
 has by statute the right to an oath of allegiance from all the prelates 
 and barons. Such is the provision of the Act 1428, c. 109, made in 
 the eighth parliament of James I, and four years after his return 
 from captivity in England. It is entitled, ".7//A lo be made to the 
 Queen be the Clcrgie and the Rarunncs" and is as follows, being, 
 
 13*
 
 150 ARGUMENT FOR THE QUEEN'S CORONATION. 
 
 like all the old statutes of Scotland, extremely concise: " Quo die Do- 
 minns Rex, ex deliberatione et consensu totius concilii statuit, quod 
 omnes et singuli successoresprselatorum regni quorumcunque, uecnon 
 omnes et singulihsered.es futuri comitum, barorium, omniumque libere 
 tenentium Domini Regis, teneantur facere consimile juramentum 
 Dominae nostrse Reginae. Nee ullus prselatus de caetero admittatur ad 
 suam temporalitatem aut hseres cnjusvis tenentis Domini Regis ad 
 suas tenendrias, nisi prius prsestet ReginaB illud juramentum." Now 
 that an argument may be drawn to the rights of the king and his Con- 
 sort in Great Britain, since the union of the Crowns, from their rights 
 in Scotland before the Union, is manifest, both upon principle, and 
 also upon the authority of the Houses of Parliament, which, in 1788, 
 ordered Scottish precedents to be examined, as well as English, touch- 
 ing the Regency. 
 
 Edward IV having been crowned in 1461, when he was unmar- 
 ried, afterwards married Elizabeth Woodville, in 1465, and her coro- 
 nation took place immediately. In the Cotton Collection there re- 
 mains an Ordo Coronationis Regis Ed. IV, et Reginse *3nglix, with 
 a memorandum, " Pro Unctione Reginee, quando sola coronanda sit." 
 Tib. E. 8. 
 
 Richard III and his Queen Anne were crowned together in 1483. 
 The proceedings of a usurper are not, in a question like the present, 
 to be overlooked; for he is likely to be peculiarly scrupulous in the 
 observance of all the ancient usages connected with the title to the 
 throne. 
 
 Henry VII took the crown by three titles descent, conquest, and 
 marriage; and although, as Lord Coke remarks, his best title in law 
 was his marriage, yet it is certain that he preferred the title by descent, 
 which upon all occasions he was anxious to put forward, placing it 
 (to use the language of Lord Bacon) as his main shield, and the other 
 two as its supporters only. The country, as far as its opinion can be 
 collected from the declaration of Parliament, viewed it in the same 
 light; and in the intendment of law this is sufficient, whatever may 
 have been the sentiments of the York party. The crown was by stat- 
 ute entailed upon him and his issue, being limited to the heirs of his 
 body generally, without any reference to the Princess Elizabeth, to 
 whom he was not then married. But before this act recognised him 
 as king de jure, and immediately after the battle of Bosworth had 
 given him possession of the crown, he solemnised his coronation, 30th 
 October MS5, postponing his marriage with ihe daughter of Edward 
 IV till tlie IStii of January following. "These nuptials," says Lord 
 Bacon, " were celebrated with greater triumph and demonstrations, 
 especially on the people's part, than either his entry or coronation, 
 which the king rather noted than liked, and all his lifetime showed 
 himself no very indulgent husband towards her." It may well be 
 supposed that this incident increased his jealousy of his Consort's title, 
 and his reluctance to do anything which might seem to recognise it. 
 He accordingly delayed the coronation till he "alienated the affec- 
 tions of the people, and till danger taught him what to do." The
 
 ARGUMENT FOR TIIE QUEEN's CORONATION. 151 
 
 feelings expressed by Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy, upon 
 the postponement, evince the sense entertained by the persons best 
 informed with respect to the rights of Queens in this particular. She 
 "could not see without trouble that Henry refused to let Elizabeth 
 be crowned an honor no Queen of England had been debarred of 
 since the Conquest; and the birth of a son had not induced him to do 
 her that justice." Notwithstanding his dislike of the measure, he was 
 at length obliged to give way; but it came, says Lord Bacon, " like 
 an old christening, that had staid long for godfathers, and this made 
 it subject to every man's note, as an act against the King's stomach." 
 The Queen was crowned alone, 25th November 14S7; and the pro- 
 clamation for appointing persons to execute the office of Lord High 
 Steward at the ceremony, is in the very same terms with the similar 
 proclamation two years before at the coronation of Henry himself. 
 Both are preserved in Rymer, xii, 277, 32 7; the one tested October 
 19, 14S5 the other November 10, 1487. 
 
 Thus, of the eighteen married Kings, from the Conquest to the 
 reign of Henry VII inclusive, not one was crowned, that had not the 
 coronation of a Consort celebrated either with his own, or upon his 
 nuptials. Fifteen coronations were celebrated for the sole purpose of 
 crowning Queens-Consort, including Edward Ps second wife; the 
 same number of coronations was celebrated on account of Kings 
 alone, including William Rufus; and six are known to have been 
 celebrated of Queens-Consort alone. The usage of four centuries is 
 sufficient to establish the rule in respect to a state ceremony; it evinces 
 the practice of England in this respect; it is sufficient to settle more 
 essential points; it fixes the custom of the monarchy, and authorises 
 the conclusion that any subsequent deviations are to be deemed capa- 
 ble of explanation in the absence of positive evidence, and to be only 
 reckoned exceptions, even if it were shown or granted thai they can- 
 not be explained. 
 
 Henry VIII was crowned with his first wife, Katherine of Arragon, 
 1509; and upon his marriage with Anne Boleyn, she was crowned 
 alone, on Whitsunday, 1533. There maybe no evidence of his other 
 wives being crowned, any more than of the contrary position. If it 
 be admitted that they were not, of which no proof exists, there seems 
 little difficulty in explaining the reasons of the omission. He married 
 Jane Seymour the day after Anne Boleyn's execution. He had then 
 quarrelled with the Emperor and the Pope; he was odious to the 
 church, which he was busy in despoiling; the destruction of Anne 
 rendered him equally unpopular with the reformed party, whom she 
 had protected; and Jane was not likely to court a ceremony which 
 must have exposed her to especial hatred, as the accomplice and the 
 occasion of un enormity so recent and so great. She soon proved 
 with child, and died the day after Edward VI was born. Anne of 
 Cloves lent herself to the proceedings for dissolving her marriage, and 
 Henry was engaged in these from the day of its celebration. During 
 the rest of his reign, the unsettled state of ecclesiastical a flairs renders 
 it probable that neither Katherine Howard nor Katherine Parr was
 
 152 ARGUMENT FOR THE QUEEN'S CORONATION. 
 
 ever crowned; but this likelihood is all the evidence we have of the 
 omission, beside the silence of historians, and want of documents. 
 
 The cases of Edward VI who died unmarried, Queen Mary, and 
 Queen Elizabeth, have of course no bearing upon the question. 
 James I was crowned with his queen in England, almost immediately 
 after his accession, they having both been previously crowned in Scot- 
 land. 
 
 Charles I was crowned 2d February 1625, near a year after his 
 accession. It is asserted that he was crowned alone; and it may be 
 so, although certainly there are grounds for a contrary supposition. 
 The proclamation for the solemnity, in the usual terms, was issued 
 17th January 1625; and it announces the coronation of Queen Henri- 
 etta Maria, as well as of the King. On the 24th of the same month, 
 a second proclamation was issued, appointing the Court of Claims, 
 and referring, by way of recital, to the coronaiion of both King and 
 Queen. On the 30th, it is true, a third proclamation respecting 
 knights of the Bath to be created, only mentions, a The solemnity of 
 our coronation;" but it is possible that those knights being for attend- 
 ance on the person of the King, the mention only of the Queen's 
 coronation might be dropt, without the intention of crowning her 
 having been abandoned. Rymer, xviii, 275, 278. However, it is 
 believed that s'le never was crowned, and this may be admitted, 
 though there is no proof of it. But this omission is not necessarily to 
 be explained by those who contend for the right. It might be suffi- 
 cient for them to say, that the current of cases, being in favor of the 
 proposition of fact, that Queens have always been crowned, the omis- 
 sion in Henrietta Maria's case must have arisen from peculiar circum- 
 stances. Nevertheless, those circumstances shall now be shown, ex 
 gratia, the burthen of the proof lying on the other side. 
 
 The marriage of Charles with a Catholic, and her arrival with a 
 Catholic suite, had given great umbrage to the country. In opening 
 his first parliament, that prince had alluded to the rumors propagated 
 by malicious persons, who gave out that he was not so true a friend 
 to the established religion as he ought to be; and he assured them, 
 that having been brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, (meaning James 
 I,) he should steadily persevere in supporting the Protestant church. 
 The Parliament was not satisfied, and the two houses held a grand 
 conference, which ended in a joint address to the King, praying him to 
 enforce the laws against Popish recusants. In the fifth article of the 
 address, they thank the King for the clause inserted in the treaty of 
 marriage that no natural born subject, being a Catholic, should be 
 employed in the Queen's household and pray that it may be enforced. 
 After the King had given satisfactory answers to the different heads 
 of the address, seriatim, and issued a proclamation against recusants 
 in consequence, his favorite misister, the Duke of Buckingham, 
 declared in parliament, that his Majesty took well their having re- 
 minded him of religion, though he should have done just the same 
 had they never asked him; "well remembering," added the duke, 
 " that his father, when he recommended to him the person of his wife,
 
 ARGUMENT FOR THE QUEEN'S CORONATION. 153 
 
 had not recommended her religion." Rushworth t \ t 172, 1S3. Parl. 
 Hist, ii, 26. These things demonstrate that great jealousy existed in 
 parliament and the country, on the subject of the Queen's religion; 
 nor was the ferment allayed by the King's compliance; for the Com- 
 mons, a few days afier, refused supplies, on account of grievances, 
 particularly the growth of Popery, and the supposed leaning of the 
 court towards it, and the parliament was suddenly dissolved on the 
 12th of August, the joint address having been voted at the begin- 
 ning of that month. Now the coronation took place in the interval 
 between this dissolution and the calling of a new parliament. 
 
 It may be from hence inferred, that one motive for changing 
 the resolution to crown the Queen, was the reflection that such a 
 measure would revive the alarms respecting her religion, and excite 
 odium against her person. The nature of the solemnity, when she 
 came to view it more nearly, must have decided her in refusing to 
 partake of it. She must have regarded with abhorrence, a ceremony 
 into which the rites of (he Protestant religion entered so largely a 
 ceremony performed at a "Protestant altar, by a Protestant prelate, in 
 the language of a Protestant ritual. Had she and the King professed 
 the same Catholic faith, this difficulty, though great, might have been 
 got over; but, as he was a sincere Protestant, the words taken by him 
 in one sense, must have been used towards her, and by her, in an 
 opposite sense, to make them innocent. The sacrament is a part of 
 the ceremony; but supposing that to have been left out, she never 
 could have received the ring given to her with the words, "Accipe 
 annulum fidei, signaculum sancta3trinitatis." "Fides," in the King's 
 case, must have meant the reformed faith; applied to the Queen, the 
 same word in the same archbishop's mouth must either have meant the 
 opposite doctrine, or it must have bound her to the heresy she daily 
 abjured. The use of the ring was equally inconsistent with her creed, 
 " Quo possis omnes hcereticas pravitates devitare;" that is, eschew 
 the heretical sins of her own religion "et barbaras gentes virtute dei 
 prccemere; et ad agnitionem veritatis advocare;" in other words, con- 
 vert infidels to the errors she abhorred as damnable. A gift bestowed 
 in such a place by such a power, accompanied by such words, sub- 
 servient to such purposes, must have been to her only an object of 
 aversion. 
 
 No reasonable doubt, then, can be entertained that the Queen was 
 deterred from submitting to be crowned, partially by her apprehension 
 of I\\G odium which her participation in a Protestant religious service 
 might excite against herself and her Catholic followers, and partly by 
 her own religious scruples. The tradition among antiquaries* is, that 
 
 * The correctness of the statement that Queen Henrietta Maria was not crowned, 
 and the reasons of the omission, are proved by a passage in "Finctti Philoxenos. 
 Same Choice Observations of Sir John /Vn/.Y/, A7., anil Muster of the Ceremonies to the 
 two lfi.it h'irt^n. 1'rintcd I(j5t>." The French ambassador was at the house of Sir 
 Ab. Williams where, with her Majesty, he had a view of the procession, p. 170. 
 He declined being a spectator at the coronation, " where the Queen, his master's
 
 154 ARGTJ]VfENT FOR THE QUEEN'S CORONATION. 
 
 she declined, unless she might be crowned by a priest of her own 
 persuasion, which was of course refused. That the difficulty must 
 have occurred in the manner here asserted, seems still further proved 
 by the article in the treaty with France, stipulating that at the mar- 
 riage, "aucune ceremonie ecclesiastique interviendra," (Rymer, xvii, 
 sub. fin,} and by the dates of the proclamations already cited, which 
 show that the change of resolution was too sudden to have proceeded 
 from actual remonstrance on the part of the country, and consequently 
 that the objection to being crowned moved from herself, dictated by 
 her apprehensions or her scruples, or both. If she had been deterred 
 by the country from enjoying her right, the non-usor would not have 
 operated against her Protestant successors; if by the King, from his 
 submission to the wish of the country, the same remark applies; but 
 there is every reason to conclude, that the three parties, King, Queen, 
 and Country, concurred in the omission, which consequently cannot 
 operate against the right, whether we consider it as in the Queen- 
 Consort, or in the realm, or in both. And the view which can be 
 taken least favorable to the argument, viz. that Henrietta Maria's 
 case stands unexplained, and is an exception to the practice, proves 
 nothing more than that a Catholic queen and Protestant king cannot 
 well be crowned together. 
 
 Charles II was crowned before his marriage with Katherine of 
 Portugal. The religious animosities of the last reign were now greatly 
 increased a motion in parliament had been made to prevent Charles's 
 marriage with a Catholic and the existence of scruples in Katherine's 
 mind is on record; for one of the charges against Lord Clarendon, in 
 Lord Bristol's Articles of Impeachment, was his having persuaded 
 the Queen to refuse being married by a Protestant priest or bishop. 
 If, then, it be admitted, that she never was crowned, (of which there 
 is no proof,) the omission falls within the scope of the argument 
 respecting the case of Henrietta Maria, with this difference, that 
 Katherine's case, howsoever explained, or if left unexplained, does not 
 affect the rule of a Queen being always crowned with her consort, if 
 married at the time of his coronation. 
 
 James II and his Queen, Mary of Modena, were crowned together, 
 both being Catholics. The solemnity of the sacrament is said to have 
 been omitted on this occasion, but how the difficulties were got over 
 which arose from the other parts of the service, seems hard to com- 
 prehend. The utmost use that can be made of their submitting to 
 the ceremony, is unavailing against the argument respecting Henrietta 
 Maria and Katherine for that which scares one person's conscience 
 may not affect another's; and besides, the King and Queen being of 
 
 daughter, excused her presence," 169. "The Queen's reason (as it was voyced) for 
 not being crowned together with the King, was because she could not (they said), 
 by her religion, be present at our church ceremonies, where she must have had 
 divine service celebrated by our bishops, and not by those of her own religion, as 
 was demanded for her crowning," 171. This book was presented by his late Majesty 
 (Geo. Ill) to the British Museum.
 
 ARGUMENT FOR THE QUEEN'S CORONATION. 155 
 
 the same religion, found it much more easy to take the words of the 
 ritual in their own sense. 
 
 Since the Revolution, no exception whatever can be found to the 
 rule; for George the First's wife never was in England never was 
 known as Queen nor even mentioned officially at all till after her 
 decease, and then named by the title she took after the divorce, which 
 is understood to have dissolved her marriage before the accession of 
 the house of Brunswick. It may be remarked, that the last proclama- 
 tion issued respecting a corronation, viz., the one directing the late 
 Queen to be crowned, was issued some days after the one for the 
 King's coronation, the marriage having been solemnized in the inter- 
 val; and it summoned all persons bound by their tenures or otherwise, 
 to attend and do service at the Queen's coronation. 
 
 The ascertainment of the facts has done more in this case than lay 
 a foundation for the argument. Every thing here depends upon 
 usage; and the uniformity of that usage, both in England and other 
 countries where the solemnity of a coronation is known, demonstrates 
 the true nature of the solemnity, indicates its component parts, and 
 prohibits the rejection of one portion rather than of another. It is 
 on all hands agreed, that, in England, no Queen-Consort has ever 
 been denied a coronation. It is admitted that the present will be the 
 first instance of a demand and refusal. But it has further been 
 proved, at the very least, that, as often as a married King has been 
 crowned, his Consort has received the same honor, unless, in one 
 instance, where she was abroad; and in another, where religion pre- 
 vented, and she declined it. That the Queen-Consort, married at the 
 King's coronation, being of his own religion, within the realm, and 
 willing to be crowned, has always been crowned, is a proposition 
 without any exception whatever; and it applies strictly to the case of 
 her present Majesty; it embraces the matter now in question. Where 
 usage and practice are every thing, this might be sufficient; but a 
 larger proposition has been proved; and it is a legitimate inference 
 from the statement of facts, that the Queen-Consort has at all times 
 been crowned as regularly and solemnly as the King himself; for, the 
 cases are extremely few, where positive proof does not exist of the 
 Queen's coronation; and it is very possible that there may be no omis- 
 sion at all. Again, if it be granted that, in those cases, were the 
 proof exists not, there was no coronation, they must, in all fair rea- 
 soning, be taken as exceptions to a very general rule; and we are 
 bound to presume that they would be so explained as to bring them 
 within the rule, if we knew the whole facts. This would be a sound 
 inference, supposing we had no means whatever of accounting for 
 those exceptions. It is the manner in which men always reason in 
 questions of historical evidence, and in the practical affairs of life; but 
 it is also the manner in which courts of law reason. If an immemorial 
 enjoyment of a way or pasture, by persons having a certain estate, is 
 proved, it will bo inferred, that the claimant, and those whoso estuto 
 he hath, at all times used the way or pasture, although he may not
 
 156 ARGUMENT FOR THE QUEEN'S CORONATION. 
 
 be able to show that each owner, within the time of living memory, 
 did use it. Suppose that this proof is wholly wanting with respect 
 to one owner, who had the estate for a few months; if all others used 
 the way or pasture, as far back as living memory reaches, the pre- 
 sumption will be, that the one owner also used it. But even if proof 
 were given that he did not, and his non-usor were unexplained; it 
 would avail nothing against the generality of the proposition of fact, 
 that all used it who chose; for the presumption would be, that there 
 existed circumstances which, if known, would explain the non-usor; 
 and the burthen of rebutting this presumption, would be thrown upon 
 the party denying the immemorial enjoyment. So here, if the person 
 holding the station of Queen-Consort is proved to have been crowned, 
 in all but two or three instances, respecting which there is no proof 
 either way, a presumption arises, that in those instances too, she was 
 crowned; and if it be shown or admitted, that in those cases no coro- 
 nation took place, he who denies the uniformity of the custom, must 
 show either that the ceremony was refused to the Queen, or that it 
 was omitted without any cause; the necessary conclusion from the 
 great majority of instances being, that the ceremony always was 
 performed, unless the Queen refused, or some accident prevented it. 
 
 This is the principle upon which other coronation claims have 
 been, in all times, dealt with. It cannot be proved, that in every 
 coronation, the Barons of the Cinque Ports performed the canopy 
 service, because there are some of those ceremonies of which no 
 records are preserved. But their claim has always been allowed, and 
 it would have been allowed, though proof should have been given, 
 that in one or two instances they did not serve, as unquestionably is the 
 case. For the omission would justly have been deemed accidental, that 
 is, imputable to causes now unknown, but consistent with the unifor- 
 mity of the usage. So tho the court has upon the present occasion 
 admitted the claim of a lord of a manor to do service as larderer to 
 the Kings and Queens of England at their coronation, although in 
 right of that manor, it is proved that no such service had been done 
 since the reign of Edward I. The King's right to be crowned might 
 stand in the same predicament; for, although it happens that his coro- 
 nation has only been omitted in one instance, that of Edward V, 
 which is easily accounted for, the omission might well have been 
 more frequent. The intervals between accessions and coronations 
 have been long enough to leave many risks of a demise of the crown 
 before the ceremony could be performed; and though the delay had 
 not been accounted for, it is presumed that the unexplained omission 
 would not have availed against the King's right. Nor can it be 
 admitted that the oaths taken by the King, and the allegiance ten- 
 dered to him, make any difference in the argument. These rest them- 
 selves upon usnge antecedent to the statute; and if they formed no 
 part of the solemnity, the King's coronation would still be an impor- 
 tant ceremony. 
 
 Such would be the principle, if all the exceptions to the rule had 
 remained wholly unexplained; but it is contended, that they have all
 
 ARGUMENT FOR THE QUEEN'S CORONATION. 157 
 
 been sufficiently accounted for. There is the greatest difference 
 between an omission and an interruption a mere non-nsor, and a 
 denial. No instance whatever is alleged of the Queen having beon 
 prevented from enjoying the honor in question. On the contrary, 
 t\vo attempts were made to disturb her, and both failed. King Henry, 
 as he must be deemed, and was always called after his coronation in 
 the lifetime of his father, Henry II, and afterwards Henry VII, delayed 
 the coronation of their consorts, and endeavored to withhold the 
 ceremony altogether; but both were obliged to yield to the usage, and 
 those Consorts were crowned. As one successful interruption would 
 countervail many instances of uncontested nsor, so one failure in the 
 attempt to interrupt is worth many instances of peaceable enjoyment. 
 
 The use and practice, such as it thus appears to have been in all 
 times, establishes the right. At least it throws upon those who deny 
 it, the burthen of proving the Queen's part of the ceremony to be 
 one that may be dispensed with, both as regards herself and the 
 ceremony, or the realm which is interested in it. But a more near 
 view of the Queen's part will still further prove the existence of the 
 right. 
 
 If it were asked by what test a substantive right can most 
 surely be known, the answer would be by these three; its separate 
 and independent enjoyment its connection with other rights arising 
 out of it, and dependent on it alone and its subserviency to some 
 important purpose, of the claimant or of the realm. The right in ques- 
 tion has all these incidents. 
 
 The Queen-Consort has been crowned in fourteen or fifteen in- 
 stances when the King's coronation had before been celebrated, and 
 when the performance of the ceremony could bear no reference to 
 him. In six of those cases, at the least, (Edward III, Richard If, and 
 Henry III, V, VI, and VII,) the Queen-Consort was crowned alone, 
 sometimes in her husband's absence, sometimes in presence of him, 
 as a mere assistant at the solemnity. Furthermore, a ceremonial is 
 distinctly laid down for her coronation, apart from the King's, upon 
 the supposition that it may at any time be performed separately; and 
 the Liber Regalia, the auihentic document prescribing the order of 
 the coronation, and followed in performing it for ages, consists of three 
 parts, the first laying down the rules for crowning the King alone, or 
 with his Consort; the second for crowning the Consort, when crowned 
 with the King; and the third, "si Regina SOLA, sit coronanf/a." 
 This solemnity, then, is considered as wholly indept3ndent of the King's 
 coronation; it is not an accessory to that ceremony; it arises, indeed, out 
 of the Queen's relation to the King by marriage; but the relation once 
 established, the ceremony follows as a necessary consequence, with 
 her other privileges. 
 
 Again; many richts in other persons have grown out of this cere- 
 mony, atid still further testify its immemorial existence and substan- 
 tive nature. The Barons claim to bear the canopy over the Queen 
 as well as the King, and to have the cloth; this claim has always been 
 VOL. i. 14
 
 158 ARGUMENT FOR THE QUEEN's CORNOATION. 
 
 allowed, e. g. in the 20th of Henry III, when the Queen alone was 
 crowned. At the same coronation, as appears by the Red Book in 
 the Exchequer, Gilbert de Sandford claimed, by ancient right of his 
 predecessors, to be chamberlain to the Queen at her coronation, and 
 to keep her chamber and the door thereof, and have the entire bed, 
 and all things belonging to it. This claim was allowed, and in the 
 Testa de Neville (or Book of Knights' Fees'), fo. 243, it is set forth, 
 that Gilbert de Sandford holds certain manors there specified " by the 
 Serjeanty, that he be the chamberlain of the lady the Queen." By 
 the same Book it appears, that at a subsequent period, Robert de 
 Vere, Earl of Oxford, held the manor by the like serjeanty. In the 
 Close Roll in the Tower, there remain a proclamation to the Barons 
 of the Cinque Ports, to perform the canopy service, at the coronation 
 of Philippa, Queen of Edward III a Summons S Hen. V, to all 
 persons to attend and perform service at the coronation of Queen 
 Katherine and an order to the Sheriffs of London, 20 Ric. II, to 
 summon, in like manner, all persons owing service at the coronation 
 of the Queen-Consort. At those three coronations the Queen alone 
 was crowned. By the Coronation Roll in the Tower, a claim ap- 
 pears to have been allowed, in the reign of Henry IV, of Reginald 
 de Grey de Ruthyn, in right of the manor of Ashele, to perform the 
 office of the napery at the coronation of Queens as well as Kings of 
 England. It is moreover certain that all persons performing any 
 service at the Queen's coronation, attain from thence the degree of 
 Esquire. (Doddridge's Law of Nobility, 145.) 
 
 It is impossible to contend that a ceremony so ancient, so univer- 
 sal, so well known and accurately described, so regularly observed 
 without any variation, far beyond the time of legal memory, and as 
 far back as history reaches a ceremony interwoven with other usages, 
 and the foundation of various rights is a mere creature of accident 
 and dependent upon the individual pleasure, or personal will of the 
 sovereign. 
 
 If no purpose could be discovered to which it can now be subser- 
 vient, or if even its original could not be traced, there would not, on 
 that account, arise a presumption, that the sovereign may ordain or 
 dispense with it. He is himself the creature of the law; and in contem- 
 plation of law he has no caprice. Mere personal matters of such a 
 nature, as plainly belong to his individual, not his corporate charac- 
 ter, he may regulate at will; but the leaning of the law and constitu- 
 tion of this country is to narrow the class of those personal functions 
 as far as possible, and to regard the natural as merging in the politic 
 capacity. It is absurd, and wholly inconsistent with every thing in 
 the history and in the ceremony of the Queen's coronation, to suppose 
 that it may be ordered or omitted, like a court dinner or ball. They 
 who maintain that it is optional, must contend that it is quite indif 
 ferent, and that it never had any meaning or importance; but they 
 must further be prepared to show, why that alone, of all the corona- 
 tion customs which it so nearly resembles, both in its nature and
 
 ARGUMENT FOR THE QUEEN'S CORONATION. 159 
 
 history, is both senseless and useless; for no one pretends that the 
 King's coronation may be performed or omitted at pleasure, and yet 
 it rests upon the same foundation of usage vvitli the Queen's. They 
 who rely upon the usage have no occasion to show either the origin 
 or the purpose of the solemnity; but then they must take all the parts 
 of it together. They who hold one part to be necessary and the other 
 optional, must distinguish the two; but where any thing is found so 
 long established, the law will intend that it must have had a reasona- 
 ble origin. 
 
 The King's coronation most probably was connected with his elec- 
 tion. He was either chosen or acknowledged upon that occasion. 
 But it does not follow that the reception of hi^ Queen, together with 
 him, by his subjects, was an unimportant part of the solemnity, even 
 if no farther explanation could be given of its use for her high rank 
 and near connection with him might render it fitting. However, the 
 use of crowning the Consort seems abundantly obvious from her 
 connection with the royal progeny. The coronation was the public 
 recognition of the King as sovereign, and of the Queen as his lawful 
 wife, and the mother of the heirs to the crown; it was the cere- 
 mony by which the sovereign's own title, and that of his issue was 
 authenticated. Crowning the King, acknowledged him as the rightful 
 monarch. Crowning the Queen, perpetuated the testimony of the 
 marriage, on the validity of which depended the purity of the succes- 
 sion to the throne; and, on the undisputed acknowledgment of 
 which depended the safety and peacefulness of that succession. The 
 especial favorite of the law of England, as regards the Queen-Consort, 
 is, and always has been, the legitimacy of the royal progeny. The 
 main objects are to prevent a spurious issue from being imposed on 
 the realm; and to remove all doubts upon this point, which, if con- 
 tested, would endanger the peace of the country. The provisions of 
 the Statute of Treasons are only declaratory of the Common Law, (3 
 Infit. 8,) and the Mirror (c. 1, s. 4,) written before the Conquest, records 
 the jealous care which, from all time, has been taken of the purity 
 and certainty of the succession to the crown; for it classes the viola- 
 tion of the royal bed among treasons, in nearly the same terms with 
 the 25 Ed. III. When we find this to be the law touching the Queen- 
 Consort in those remote ages which also established the practice 
 of invariably requiring her to be crowned, we can be at no loss to 
 conclude that her coronation originated in the same principle, and was 
 intended to prevent any doubts arising with respect to the validity of 
 her marriage. 
 
 It is a further confirmation of the same doctrine, and gives addi- 
 tional weight to the whole argument for the right claimed, that dis- 
 tinct traci-s remain in the older coronations of an actual acknowledg- 
 ment, and even acceptance of the Queen-Consort, very similar to the 
 recognition of the King. In the Charier Roll in the Toicer, 5 
 John, is a grant of dower to Queen Isabella: " Qua; in Anglia de rom- 
 rnuni assensu et concordi voluntate Archi-cpiscoportim, Episcoporum,
 
 160 ARGUMENT FOR THE QUEEN'S 
 
 Comitum, Baronum, Cleri, et Populi totius Angliee, in Reginam est 
 Coronata." So that the origin of the two ceremonies was exactly 
 the same. The one party was acknowledged or received as king by 
 common consent of the three estates; the other was by the same con- 
 sent acknowledged or received as his wife or queen, for the words in 
 Saxon are synonymous, queen signifying only the wife, by way of 
 eminence, that is, the King's wife. 
 
 It follows from these positions, that though the reason of the thing 
 may long since have ceased as to the King's coronation, yet it remains 
 in some sort to this day with respect to the Queen's. For happily 
 there has long ceased to be any semblance of election in this monar- 
 chy, and the only vestige that remains of it is the coronation cere- 
 mony; but doubts may exist as to the validity of a King's marriage, 
 and as celebrating the coronation of the consort tends to make the 
 testimony of it public and perpetual, so omitting, and still more the 
 withholding that solemnity, has a tendency to raise suspicions against 
 the marriage, and to cast imputations upon the legitimacy of the issue, 
 contrary to the genius and policy of the law. 
 
 It is another corollary from the same principles, and one which 
 greatly supports the present claim, that the omitting, and still more 
 the withholding the solemnity with respect to the Queen, when a mar- 
 ried king is crowned, tends much more to defeat the objects of the 
 law, than the neglecting or refusing to crown a queen married after 
 her husband's accession. For the marriage of a reigning sovereign 
 must needs be public and well known to all the world: whereas an 
 heir to the crown, being a prince or a common person, may, when 
 in a private station, have secretly contracted a marriage, of the exist- 
 ence or validity of which great doubts shall afterwards be entertained. 
 And this argument is most consistent with the invariable course of the 
 custom respecting the coronation of married kings. 
 
 A further consequence from the premises is, that the Queen-Con- 
 sort's coronation is not so much a right in herself as in the realm; or 
 rather it is a right given to her for the benefit of the realm, in like 
 manner as the King's rights are conferred upon him for the common 
 weal; and hence is derived an answer to the objection, that the queen 
 has always enjoyed it by favor of her consort, who directs her to be 
 crowned as a matter of grace. The law and constitution of this 
 country are utterly repugnant to any such doctrine as grace or favor 
 from the crown regulating the enjoyment of public rights. The 
 people of these realms hold their privileges and immunities by the 
 same title of law whereby the King holds his crown, with this differ- 
 ence, that the crown is only holden for the better maintaining those 
 privileges and immunities; and they do imagine a vain thing who 
 contend, that a firmly established usage, well known in all ages, and 
 subservient to important public purposes, can depend upon any thing 
 but the law and practice of the monarchy. 
 
 The same answer may be made to the objection, that the Queen's 
 coronation has always been solemnised by force of a proclamation
 
 ARGUMENT FOR THE QUEEN'S CORONATION. 161 
 
 from the crown, which is indeed only another form of the last objec- 
 tion, and is not much aided by referring to the words in the proclama- 
 tion, " We have resolved to celebrate," &c. The right is not claimed 
 adversely as against the King; it is his right as well as the Queen's 
 that she should be crowned; or rather, it is the right of the realm by 
 law, and the king, as executor of the law, is to see that the ceremony 
 be performed. But this objection would disprove the existence of all 
 rights, public and private; for without the nominal intervention of 
 the crown, none can be enforced if resisted, and many of the most 
 important cannot be enjoyed by the realm, or by individuals. All 
 writs run in the King's name. Not to mention judicial writs, the heir 
 to whom a peerage is limited cannot enjoy his highest privilege with- 
 out a writ of summons to parliament. And though this is issued by 
 the King, and though, except by impeachment of his ministers, there 
 be no remedy if it be withholden, yet there can be no doubt that the 
 subject luis a right to it. (Skin. 432, 441, Verncy's case.} So, of a 
 petition of right, the subject's only remedy for the crown's intrusion 
 upon his lands or goods. So, of the right which the realm has by 
 statute to a new parliament once in seven years at the least, the enact- 
 ment being, that the "King, his heirs and successors, shall within, &c. 
 direct legal writs to be issued under the great seal for calling and 
 holding a new parliament." (16th Car. I, cap. 1; 16th Bar. II, cap. 
 1; 6tir\V. & M. cap. 2.; 1st Geo. I, cap. 38, st. 2.) Now, in all these 
 cases the right is not the less admitted to be in the subject, because it 
 can only be enforced or enjoyed through the interposition of the 
 crown. A right to that interposition is exactly part of the right 
 in question; if it be withholden, a wrong is done; and the pos- 
 sibility of this is so far from disproving the right, that the law will 
 not suppose such a possibility. Then, as to the language of the pro- 
 clamation, it proves nothing. Other writs run in similar terms; and 
 the writ of error states, " nos volentcs errorem corrigi et justitiam 
 fieri, prom decet." (F. N. B. 24.) 
 
 It is further said, that the Queen cannot prescribe for being crowned, 
 because she is neither a corporation nor does she prescribe, in a que 
 estate. Now, first, it is indifferent whether she takes it by prescrip- 
 tion or custo.n by force of ancient grant or ancient statute; next, 
 she is to many intents a corporation, and lastly she may prescribe as 
 well as a chancellor, who only holds an office at will, and yet has been 
 permitted to prescribe for privileges " in him, and those whose estate 
 he hath" (Com. Dig. Prseficription, A.;) or a serjeant, attorney, or 
 nnder-sherilf, who can all in like manner prescribe (1 I\oll. 204. 11 
 Ed. IV. 2, and 21 Hen. Vll. 16. /A) Surely if such functionaries 
 may say, that all those who have held tho same place enjoyed certain 
 privileges, the Queen-Consort may say the like. Yet here is no ques- 
 tion of pleading, to which, rather than to the more general assertion 
 of the right, those doubts are applicable. 
 
 This is the argument submitted to the Lords of the Privy Council 
 on behalf of the Queen-Consort. The question is raised for the first 
 
 14*
 
 162 ARGUMENT FOR THE QUEEN'S CORONATION. 
 
 time, it must be determined by legal principles, without reference to 
 the occurrences which have lately agitated the country. Future ages, 
 in pronouncing upon it, and in judging the judges of the present day, 
 will view the subject as calmly as we do the remains of the Saxon 
 Heptarchy, or the monuments of the Norman line; and will only 
 recur to the events which occupy us, in case the sentence now given 
 should be otherwise unintelligible. If that sentence shall be one 
 worthy of the great names which sanction it, there will be no such 
 explanation wanted.
 
 CASE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE REV. RICHARD BLACOW 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 LICENTIOUSNESS OF THE PRESS. TRIUMPHAL PROCESSION OF THE 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 QUEEN CAROLINE was at all times extremely averse to Prosecutions for Libel. 
 She had early in her life, that is to say, soon after the course of her persecutions 
 commenced, well considered the subject, and become aware of the extremely un- 
 satisfactory state of our law regarding the offences of the press. The result of all 
 her reflection and observation upon the subject was, that the submitting to slander 
 was the lesser evil, and that legal proceedings only made the injury more severe, 
 by giving the invectives a more extensive circulation. She felt that, by prosecuting 
 a libel, she lent herself to the designs of the slanderer, and suffered so much the 
 more, only that others might be deterred from publishing their calumnies against 
 other individuals, probably against her enemies themselves. Add to this, that she 
 was of a fearless nature, and never doubted that the efforts of malice would fail to 
 affect her general reputation. 
 
 This aversion to all penal proceedings was certainly not diminished by the trial 
 before the Lords, if a word usually consecrated to the administration of justice 
 may be prostituted to describe the case of 1820, in which it would be hard to say 
 whether greater violence was done to the forms of justice, or a more entire disre- 
 gard shown to its substance. She had been kept for many months in a state of 
 annoyance and vexation, of irritation and suspense, during those shameful pro- 
 ceedings, which, regulated by no principles known in courts of law, were calculated 
 to affright the person most conscious of innocence, and to make every observer 
 feel that the event depended as little upon the real merits of the case as any divi- 
 sion in either House of Parliament upon a party question turns upon the soundness 
 of the arguments advanced in the debate, or the personal qualities of the different 
 speakers. She was compelled to bear with her advisers, while they were discuss- 
 ing the propriety of prosecuting the perjured witnesses, although she felt rather 
 relieved than disappointed when it was found that technical difficulties stood in 
 the way of any such course being taken. Hut she had a very decided aversion to 
 going before the legal tribunals, and being involved in a lengthened litigation, well 
 knowing how unsatisfactory the result might prove, and how little likely a convic- 
 tion was to silence the calumniators, who were hired and set on by a court wholly 
 unscrupulous in using tho strong influence which it possessed over the press, and 
 the ample resources of corruption placed at its disposal. After the tempestuous 
 scene through which slie had passed, tranquillity was the object of all her wishes; 
 and she felt confident that her conduct would be rightly appreciated by the country 
 at large, how active soever her unprincipled adversaries might be in the dissemi- 
 nation of their slanders. Her wishes accordingly prevailed, and tho consequence
 
 164 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 was, that the press was polluted with a degree of malignity and impurity before 
 wholly unknown. Newspapers that used formerly to maintain some character for 
 liberality towards political adversaries, became the daily and weekly vehicles of 
 personal abuse against all who took the Queen's part. Journals which had never 
 suffered their pages to be defiled by calumnies against individuals, nor ever had 
 invaded the privacy of domestic life for the purpose of inflicting pain upon the 
 families of political enemies, devoted their columns to the reception of scandal 
 against men, and even women, who happened to be connected with the Queen's 
 supporters. As if the publications already established were too few for the slan- 
 derer's purpose, or too scrupulous in lending themselves to his views, new papers 
 were established with the professed object of maintaining a constant war against 
 all who espoused Her Majesty's cause. Nay, it was enough that any persons, of 
 any age or of either sex, held any intercourse whatever with that illustrious Prin- 
 cess, to make their whole life and conversation the subject of unsparing severity 
 and unmeasured and unmanly vituperation. A single error, far short of fault, once 
 detected, was made the nucleus round which were gathered all the falsehoods 
 which a slanderous and malignant fury could invent, and the defects of the law 
 being well known to those who had studied them in order to evade its sanctions, 
 little fear was entertained of the propagation of those falsehoods being visited with 
 punishment, as long as any, the least imperfection existed in any one's conduct, 
 which could not be denied upon oath. In one respect, the whole thing was so 
 much overdone, that it failed to produce its full effect. Slander like every thing 
 else, may be made so abundant as to lose its value. Fierce and indiscriminate 
 calumnies daily and weekly circulated in journals, and in pamphlets, and in private 
 society, began to lose their relish, and to pall upon the appetite which, by loading 
 it to excess, they ceased to provoke. After a little while people began to care 
 very much less for these attacks; they seemed to be considered as matters of course; 
 and it was found that the press had lost the greater part of its power as regarded 
 inectivcs or imputations. Nay, so many things were published, notoriously with- 
 out the least foundation, that the truths which from time to time became mixed 
 with the falsehoods, shared the same fate, and all were disbelieved alike; nor did 
 persons of indifferent life and doubtful fame fail to feel the comforts of their new 
 position, kept in countenance as they now were by the most respected individuals, 
 whose hitherto unassailed reputation were as much the objects of the prevailing 
 malignant epidemic, as their own more frail reputations. Thus the press not only 
 ceased to have its appropriate effect of encouraging virtue and controlling vice, but 
 it operated as some little annoyance to the good, while it cherished and protected 
 the bad: all men perceiving that the purest life was no kind of security against its 
 assaults, while it confounded the licentious with the blameless, causing its showers 
 to fall alike on the just and the unjust. 
 
 To the Queen's resolution against prosecuting her slanderers, her advisers ad- 
 hered throughout with one remarkable exception. A reverend clergyman of the 
 established church thought fit, in the discharge of his sacred duties, to preach a 
 sermon abounding in the most gross scurrility. The main subject of his attack 
 was Her Majesty's going in procession to St. Paul's Cathedral, where she attended 
 divine service in the month of November, to offer up thanks for her providential 
 deliverance from her enemies; and was surrounded by countless thousands of the 
 people, her steady and unflinching supporters. The wonderful spectacle which the 
 great capital of the empire exhibited on that remarkable occasion, has never per- 
 haps been adequately described. But it perhaps may be better understood if we 
 add, that those who witnessed the extraordinary pomp of her present Majesty's 
 visit to the Guildhall Banquet last November, and who also recollect the far more 
 simple and unbought grandeur of the former occasion, treat any comparison be- 
 tween the two as altogether ridiculous. When Queen Caroline went to celebrate 
 her triumph, and to thank God for "giving her the victory over all her enemies," 
 the eye was met by no troops no body-guards no vain profusion of wealth no 
 costly equipages no gorgeous attire no heaving up of gold no pride of heraldry 
 no pomp of power, except indeed the might that slumbered in the arms of my- 
 riads ready to die in her defence. But in place of all this, there was that which 
 the late solemnity wanted a real occasion. It was the difference between make-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 1G5 
 
 believe and reality between play and work between representation and business 
 between the drama and the deed. When the young Queen moved through her 
 subjects, she saw thousands of countenances lit up with hope, and beaming with 
 good-will, and hundreds of thousands of faces animated with mere curiosity. 
 Queen Caroline had been oftentimes seen by all who then beheld her; she had 
 been long known to them; her whole life had but recently been the subject of 
 relentless scrutiny: hope from her of any kind there was none. All that she was 
 ever likely to do, she had already done; but she had been despiteful!}' used and 
 persecuted; she had faced her enemies and defied their threats, dared them to the 
 combat and routed them with disgrace. In her person justice had triumphed; the 
 people had stood by her, and had shared in her immortal victory. The solemnity 
 of November, 1820, was the celebration of that great event, and although they 
 who partook of it had no sordid interest to pursue, no selfish feeling of any kind 
 to gratify; although they were doing an act that instead of winning any smile from, 
 royalty, drew down the frowns of power, and were steering counter to the stream, 
 of court favor, adown which Englishmen, of all people in the world, are the most 
 delighted to glide; yet the occasion was one of such real feeling, so much the 
 commemoration of a real and a great event, and the display of practical and deter- 
 mined feelings pointed to a precisely defined and important object, that its excite- 
 ment baffles all description, and cannot be easily comprehended by those who only 
 witnessed the comparatively tame and unmeaning pageant of November 1837. 
 
 In the proportion of its interest to the people at large, was the indignation which 
 this celebrated festival excited at Court; and the time-servers speedily finding that 
 they could not in any thing so well recommend themselves to favor in high quarters 
 as by attacking this solemnity in any wa}', lost no time in opening their batteries 
 of slander. According to the plan which had been adopted by Her Majesty's ad- 
 visers, all the ordinary herd of libellers were suffered to exhaust their malice 
 unresented and unprovoked. But a sermon preached to a large congregation, and 
 one of exemplary piety, by a minister of the Established Church, and one laying 
 claims to extraordinary sanctity of life and fervor of religious feeling, could not be 
 thus passed over. Her Majesty's Attorney-general therefore moved the Court of 
 King's Bench for a Criminal Information against Mr. Blacow the offender; and 
 obtained a Rule to show cause upon a simple affidavit setting forth the fact of the 
 slander and the publication by preaching, but not denying the matters alleged. It 
 was found upon examining the precedents and the other authorities, that the Queen- 
 Consort had a right to have her Rule without the usual affidavit of denial, and that 
 it would be irregular to make this affidavit. Her Majesty was quite prepared, and 
 indeed she wished, to deny upon oath the whole matter laid to her charge, but her 
 inclination was overruled, on the result of the search for precedents. No cause 
 was shown by the defendant, and the trial coming on at Lancaster, Mr. Brougham 
 who had obtained the Rule while he held the office of Attorney-general to the 
 Queen, led for the prosecution, in opening which, the following speech was deli- 
 vered. The reverend defendant was his own counsel, and made a long abusive 
 speech, full of every kind of irrelevant matter, and continually interrupted and 
 threatened with punishment by Mr. Justice Holroyd, the learned judge who tried 
 the cause. The jury without hesitation found him guilty. 
 
 During the interval between the Information being obtained and tried, an event 
 happened which gave a peculiarly mournful interest to the proceeding the death 
 of ibis great Princess, who fell a sacrifice to the unwearied and unrelenting perse- 
 cution of her enemies!. A circumstance well fitted to disarm any malignity merely 
 human, seemed only to inspire fresh bitterness and new fury into the breast of the 
 ferocious priest. The indignation and disgust of the country was roused to its 
 highest pilch by tin- unbridled violence of his defence; and when men regarded the 
 groundlessness of those charges of which it was made up, against all he had oc- 
 casion to mention, they were, forcibly reminded of a passage in Dr. King's lato 
 History of the Rebellion of 17-15, a favorite; Jacobite production " Ualcones apud 
 Anglos sunt infames delatores, gigantmn filii; quos nattini malcvolos spes pni'tnii 
 induxit in sumniuin serins: qui quiim caslos el integerrimos viros accusare soleant, 
 omnia confingunt, et non modo perjuna sua vendunt, verum etiam alios impi Hunt
 
 166 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ad pejurandum nomen sumunt a Blacow quodam sacerdote, qui ob nefarias suas 
 delationes donatus est canonicatu Vindsoriensi a regni prafecto." 
 
 This man was brought up for judgment in the following Michaelmas term, and 
 only sentenced by the Court of King's Bench to three months' imprisonment 
 Messrs. Hunt having suffered a confinement of two years, and paid a fine of 1000/., 
 for a far less slanderous attack on the Regent in 1802; and Mr. Drakard having, as 
 we have seen, been confined eighteen months, for publishing some remarks on 
 military punishments, which a Middlesex jury had just before pronounced to be 
 no libel at all. Three years after Blacow's trial, Mr. D. W. Harvey and his 
 printer were tried in the Court of King's Bench for a libel upon George IV, in a 
 country paper published by them. It represented that sovereign as guilty of almost 
 every crime which a prince can commit, and farther charged him with having 
 rejoiced exceedingly at the death of his wife, his brother, and especially his only 
 child, the Princess Charlotte. It was, perhaps, the worst case of libel ever brought 
 before the court. When the defendants were brought up for judgment, they ap- 
 peared without any counsel; but just as the sentence was about being pronounced, 
 Mr. Brougham, who with Mr. Denman had defended them at the trial, beckoned 
 to Mr. Harvey, who crossed the court apparently to receive some suggestion for 
 his speech in mitigation of punishment. He then addressed the court, and on his 
 concluding, was again beckoned to by his counsel, as if he had still omitted some- 
 thing. The court complained of this interference, as Mr. Brougham was not then 
 retained for either of the defendants. Whereupon he stated that the reason why 
 he made Mr. Harvey cross the court was to suggest, what he now took leave to do 
 as amicus curix, that Mr. Blacow for his scandalous sermon against the late Queen, 
 had only been sentenced to three months' imprisonment, and that of course more 
 could not be given in the present case. Their lordships expressed much displeasure 
 at this interference, seeming not to set a high value upon the " amicilia curias," 
 which had been testified; but after a short consultation, they sentenced Mr. Harvey 
 and his co-defendant to the same period of confinement with Mr. Blacow.
 
 SPEECH 
 
 COURT OF COMMON PLEAS AT LANCASTER, 
 ON OPENING THE PROSECUTION 
 
 AGAINST 
 
 RICHARD BLACOW, CLERK, 
 
 SEPTEMBER, 1821. 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP GENTLEMEN OF THE JuRY: 
 
 It is my painful duty to bring before you the particulars of this case; 
 it is yours to try it; and my part shall be performed in a very short 
 time indeed; for I have little if any thing, more to do, than merely to 
 read what I will not characterise by words of my own, but I will 
 leave to you, and may leave to every man whose judgment is not 
 perverted and whose heart is not corrupt, to affix the proper descrip- 
 tion to the writing, and his fitting character to the author. I will read 
 to you what the defendant composed and printed; and I need do no 
 more. You have heard from my learned friend and if you still have 
 any doubt, it will soon be removed to whom the following passage 
 applies. Of the late Queen it is that this passage is written, and pub- 
 lished. 
 
 "The term 'cowardly' which they have now laid to my charge, I 
 think you will do me the justice to say, does not belong to me; that 
 feeling was never an inmate of my bosom; neither when the Jacobins 
 raged around us with all their fury, nor in the present days of radical 
 nproar and delusion. The latter, indeed, it must be allowed, have 
 one feature about them even more hideous and disgusting than the 
 Jacobins themselves. They fell down and worshipped the goddess of 
 reason, a most respectable and decent sort of being." And you 
 know, gentlemen, that she was a common prostitute, taken from the 
 stews of Paris. " A most respectable and decent sort of being com-
 
 168 LIBEL ON THE QUEEN. 
 
 pared with that which the radicals have set up as the idol of their 
 worship. They have elevated the goddess of hist on the pedestal of 
 shame; an object of all others the most congenial to their taste, the 
 most deserving of their homage, the most worthy of their adoration. 
 After exhibiting her claims to their favor in two distinct quarters of 
 the globe; after compassing sea and land with her guilty paramour, 
 to gratify to the full her impure desires, and even polluting the Holy 
 Sepulchre itself with her presence to which she was carried in mock 
 majesty astride upon an ass she returned to this hallowed soil so 
 hardened in sin so bronzed with infamy so callous to every feel- 
 ing of decency or shame, as to go on Sunday last" here, gentlemen, 
 the reverend preacher alluded, not to the public procession at St. 
 Pauls where her late Majesty returned thanks for her delivery or 
 to other processions which might, partly at least, be considered as po- 
 litical, but to her humble, unaffected, pious devotion in the church of 
 Hammersmith " to go on Sunday last clothed in the mantle of adul- 
 tery, to kneel down at the altar of that God who is ' of purer eyes 
 than to behold iniquity,' when she ought rather to have stood bare- 
 footed in the aisle, covered with a shirt as white as ' unsunned snow,' 
 doing penance for her sins. Till this had been done, I would never 
 have defiled my hands by placing the sacred symbols in hers; and 
 this she would have been compelled to do in those good old days 
 when Church discipline was in pristine vigor and activity." 
 
 Gentlemen, the author of this scandalous, this infamous libel, is a 
 minister of the Gospel. The libel is a sermon the act of publication 
 was preaching it the place was his church the day was the Sab- 
 bath the audience was his flock. Far be it from me to treat lightly 
 that office of which he wears the outward vestments, and which he 
 by his conduct profanes. A pious, humble, inoffensive, charitable 
 minister of the gospel of peace, is truly entitled to the tribute of affec- 
 tion and respect which is ever cheerfully bestowed. But I know no 
 title to our love or our veneration which is possessed by a meddling, 
 intriguing, unquiet, turbulent priest, even when he chooses to sepa- 
 rate his sacred office from his profane acts; far less when he mixes up 
 both together when he refrains not from polluting the sanctuary 
 itself with calumny when he not only invades the sacred circle of 
 domestic life with the weapons of malicious scandal, but enters the 
 hallowed threshold of the temple with the torch of slander in his hand, 
 and casts it flaming on the altar; poisons with rank calumnies the 
 air which he especially is bound to preserve holy and pure making 
 the worship of God the means of injuring his neighbor; and defiling 
 by his foul slanders the ears, and by his false doctrines perverting the 
 minds, and by his wicked example tainting the lives of the flock com- 
 mitted by Christ to his care! 
 
 Of the defendant's motives I say nothing. I care not what they 
 were; for innocent they could not be. I care not whether he was 
 paying court to some patron, or looking up with a general act of syco- 
 phancy to the bounty of power, or whether it was mere mischief and 
 wickedness, or whether the outrage proceeds from sordid and malig-
 
 LIBEL ON THE QUEEN. 169 
 
 nant feelings combined, and was the base offspring of an union not 
 unnatural, however illegitimate, between interest and spite. But be 
 his motives of a darker or lighter shade, innocent they could not have 
 been: and unless the passage I have read proceeded from innocency, it 
 would be a libel on you to doubt that you will find it a libel. 
 
 Of the illustrious and ill-fated individual who was the object .of this 
 unprovoked attack, I forbear to speak. She is now removed from 
 such low strife, and there is an end, I cannot say of her chequered 
 life, for her existence was one continued scene of suffering of dis- 
 quiet of torment from injustice, oppression, and animosity by all 
 who either held or looked up to emolument or aggrandisement all 
 who either possessed or courted them but the grave has closed over 
 her unrelenting persecutions. Unrelenting I may well call them, for 
 they have not spared her ashes. The evil passions which beset her 
 steps in life, have not ceased to pursue her memory, with a resent- 
 ment more relentless, more implacable than death. But it is yours to 
 vindicate the broken laws of your country. If your verdict shall have 
 no effect on the defendant if he still go on unrepenting and una- 
 bashed it will at least teach others, or it will warn them and deter 
 them from violating the decency of private life, betraying sacred pub- 
 lic duties, and insulting the majesty of the Law. 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 SPEECHES 
 IN TRIALS FOR LIBELS 
 
 ON 
 
 THE DURHAM CLERGY. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 DEATH OF QUEEN CAROLINE CONDUCT OP THE DURHAM CLERGY. 
 
 WHEN the late Queen Caroline, yielding to the altogether unexampled course of 
 persecution in every form under which she had suffered, was stricken with a mor- 
 tal sickness, the immediate consequence of mental distress, parties were variously 
 affected hy the intelligence that her life was in danger. The people universally, 
 and with but little distinction of party or of sect, were thrown into a state of the 
 most painful anxiety, and waited in suspense the arrival of the tidings which were 
 to confirm or to dissipate the prevailing gloom. After a passing interval of better 
 prospects, all hope was soon banished by information that she was given over; and 
 the news of her decease, which happened on the. 7th of August, 1821, followed 
 immediately after. In all the places where the event was made known, and where 
 no undue influence or superior authority was exerted to suppress the public feelings, 
 the utmost concern was manifested, not unaccompanied with indignation at tiie 
 author of those wrongs which had led to this sorrowful event. Among the more 
 ordinary, and therefore, if displayed, the more unimportant manifestations of con- 
 cern, was that of tolling the bells in cathedrals and churches, the constant mark of 
 respect paid to all the royal family, even the most insignificant and the least popu- 
 lar a ceremony so much of course that nothing could give it any importance ex- 
 cept the rudeness or the servility which might obstruct its being performed. Accord- 
 ingly, the tribute of respect had almost universally been paid, and had excited no 
 comment any where. It was reserved for the heads of the Durham Cathedral to 
 form an exception, the only exception of any importance, to the general course of 
 conduct pursued upon this mournful occasion. They would not sutler the bells of 
 that venerable edifice to be tolled in the wonted manner. 
 
 It might have been thought that even had it been decent for churchmen to take 
 part in such a controversy, and during the queen's life to side with the oppressors 
 against the injured party, the event which removed the latter from all worldly con- 
 cerns, would have allayed also the animosity of her clerical antagonists; and that, 
 though they had refused her the benefit of their prayers while living, they would 
 riot m. ike themselves the solitary exception among Chapters and other Collegiate 
 bodies, to the regular course of paying an accustomed mark of respect to the con- 
 sort of the sovereign, now only known to them as one whose death had made his 
 Majesty a widower, and enabled him to gratify his desires without violating hi-< 
 own coiijngal du'ies. These reverend personages, however, thought otiii ru ise; 
 they forbade their bells to toll; and tho consequence was some remarks in the l)ur-
 
 172 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ham Chronicle, a provincial pnper long distinguished for its steady though tem- 
 perate support of liberal opinions, both on civil and on ecclesiastical subjects. 
 These remarks were as follows, and they were published on the 10th of August, 
 while the event was fresh in the recollection of all, and the feeling had not 
 subsided which it was calculated to excite. 
 
 " So far as we have been able to judge from the accounts in the public papers, a 
 mark of respect to her late majesty has been almost universally paid throughout 
 the kingdom, when the painful tidings of her decease were received, by tolling the 
 bells of the Cathedrals and Churches. But there is one exception to this very 
 creditable fact which demands especial notice. In this episcopal city, containing 
 six churches independently of the cathedral, not a single bell announced the depar- 
 ture of the magnanimous spirit of the most injured of queens the most perse- 
 cuted of women. Thus the brutal enmity of those who embittered her mortal exist- 
 ence pursues her in her shroud. 
 
 " We know not whether any actual orders were issued to prevent this customary 
 sign of mourning; but the omission plainly indicates the kind of spirit which predo- 
 minates among our clergy. Yet these men profess to be followers of Jesus Christ, to 
 walk in his footsteps, to teach his precepts, to inculcate his spirit, to promote har- 
 mony, charity, and Christian love! Out upon such hypocrisy! It is such conduct 
 which renders the very name of our established clergy odious till it stinks in the 
 nostrils; that makes our churches look like deserted sepulchres, rather than temples 
 of the living God; that raises up conventicles in every corner, and increases the 
 brood of wild fanatics and enthusiasts; that causes our beneficed dignitaries to be 
 regarded as usurpers of their possessions; that deprives them of all pastoral influ- 
 ence and respect; that in short has left them no support or prop in the attach- 
 ment or veneration of the people. Sensible of the decline of their spiritual and 
 moral influence, they cling to temporal power, and lose in their officiousness in poli- 
 tical matters, even the semblance of the character of ministers of religion. It is 
 impossible that such a system can last. It is at war with the spirit of the age, as 
 well as with justice and reason, and the beetles who crawl about amidst its holes 
 and crevices, act as if they were striving to provoke and accelerate the blow, which, 
 sooner or later, will inevitably crush the whole fabric and level it with the dust." 
 
 In the Court of King's Bench, Mr. Scarlett, then Attorney-general for the County 
 Palatine, obtained on the 14th November a rule to show cause why a Criminal In- 
 formation should not be filed against John Ambrose Williams, as the reputed pub- 
 lisher of this paragraph, who indeed neverdenied that he was also its author. The 
 first of the following speeches is the argument of Mr. Brougham, who with the 
 late learned, able, and most excellent John Bonham Carter, (Member for Ports- 
 mouth, and son-in-law of William Smith,) was of counsel for the defendant. The 
 rule was, not without hesitation on the part of the court, made absolute, there being 
 indeed, no similar instance of a rule so granted, where the party applying did not 
 deny upon oath the matters charged against him in the alleged libel. It was not 
 very easy to support by precedents a prosecution in this form, instituted for a libel 
 against a body so little defined as " the Clergy of Durham;" still less such a body 
 as the Information afterwards filed words them, "the Clergy residing in and near 
 the city of Durham;" there being no means of ascertaining what distance this in- 
 cluded, and consequently who the parties libelled really were. But it was a no- 
 velty still greater and more alarming to receive as prosecutors by Criminal Infor- 
 mation a purty who, under the shelter of this vagueness, made no affidavit of the 
 falsehood r>f the charge, and thus escaped the performance of that condition under 
 which all other parties are laid by the rule of the court when they apply for its ex- 
 traordinary interposition, instead of proceeding by indictment. 
 
 The Huh: being thus made absolute, the Information was filed, and went down 
 to trial at the next summer assizes for the County Palatine, where it excited 
 extraordinary interest from the parties, the subject and the spirit of political ani- 
 mosity prevailing between the College and a large portion of the community. The 
 cause was tried before Mr. Baron Wood, and the speech in Mr. Williams's defence 
 forms the second and the principal of those connected with this extraordinary pro- 
 ceeding. The jury were enclosed for above five hours, and returned a verdict 
 which restricted the libel, and again raised one of the questions on the record,
 
 INTRODUCTION. 173 
 
 which had been argued in showing- cause against the Rule. The verdict was, 
 "Guilty of publishing a libel n<rainst the clergy residing in and near the city of 
 Durham and the suburbs thereof." 
 
 The defendant, accordingly, next Michaelmas term, moved in arrest of judgment, 
 and also for a new trial, when the third of these speeches was delivered viz., the 
 argument on that motion. The result was, that Mr. Brougham obtained a Rule to 
 show cause, but the matter stood over, the prosecutors never showing any cause, 
 and consequently no judgment was ever pronounced, either upon the Rule or upon 
 the defendant who thus was let go free as if he had been acquitted altogether by 
 the jury. It was the general opinion of Westminster Hall, that no judgment 
 could have been given upon the verdict which had been found. It was all but the 
 general opinion there, that the granting this Rule for a libel so conceived, and 
 above all, without the usual denial on the prosecutor's oath, was a wide and wholly 
 unprecedented departure from the established practice in this most delicate and 
 important matter, and the precedent now made has certainly never since been fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 The speech delivered on the trial at Durham naturally excited much attention at 
 the time, from the nature of the subject; and perhaps this was increased by the 
 notion which prevailed, that individuals of the cathedral were alluded to in it. 
 But for this there could be no foundation. It was uniformly denied by Mr. 
 Brougham; whose professional duty, while it required him freely to discuss the 
 merits of the Chapitral establishment and the conduct of those forming its present 
 members as a body, certainly did not call for any singling out of individuals; much 
 less for any deviation from the act with which alone they were charged, namely, 
 disrespect, for party purposes, towards the memory of the late Queen. The Chap- 
 ter consisted of many most worthy, pious, learned, and able individuals; and 
 though, while under the influence of party feelings, which clergymen ought never 
 to indulge, they had been led astray on the particular occasion, their general con- 
 duct was not in question, and was not made the subject of forensic discussion, 
 either at the trial or in the court above. 
 
 15'
 
 ARGUMENT 
 
 IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH, 
 
 IN THE CASE OF 
 
 JOHN AMBROSE WILLIAMS. 
 
 JANUARY 25, 1822. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM, on the 25th January, being called upon to show 
 cause why the Rule Nisi should not be made absolute, addressed the 
 Court to the following effect: 
 
 This was a Rule obtained by my friend, Mr. Scarlett, last term, 
 calling on the defendant to show cause why a criminal information 
 should not be filed against him for a libel on the Clergy of Durham, 
 the matter being alleged to be libellous. My lords, before I proceed 
 to call your attention to the alleged libel, and to the circumstances in 
 which it was published, I shall in the first instance submit (as I think 
 it will save a great deal of time) a preliminary, and, as it appears to 
 me, a fatal objection to the proceedings altogether, arising out of 
 the manner in which this Rule has been obtained. Your lordships 
 will observe that this is not one of those cases of which a good deal 
 has been heard lately, namely, of a prosecutor unknown to the law, 
 but it is, in fact, the case of a prosecutor altogether unknown to the 
 particular party it is an anonymous prosecution it is the most novel 
 of all these recent novelties. I will defy any man to tell who the 
 person is, or who the persons who the corporation, corporate or sole 
 upon whose application this Rule was obtained. It is unnecessary 
 for me to remind your lordships, that if an ofl'ence lias been com- 
 mitted if a libel has been published or if any thing has been done 
 which requires that the doors of justice should be open for punish- 
 ment or redress the discharging this Rule does not close those doors; 
 for, as was observed by my Lord Kenyon,in a case somewhat similar 
 to the present, "the refusing this application does not close the door 
 of justice; it only bars the access to justice by this particular avenue." 
 So if a libel has been published, it is still Actionable or Indictable in 
 the ordinary and regular manner. I submit that it is a mere novelty 
 for a party to ask of the Court a Criminal Information in this extraor-
 
 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM. 175 
 
 dinary fashion, without making himself known to your lordships, and 
 appearing hero by atlidavit, it' need be; tor your lordships will easily 
 remember, and indeed it has recently come a good deal under discus- 
 sion, that where there are libellous publications of any specific matter, 
 whether alone, or connected with others of a more vague description 
 where, in short, either the whole or any part of the charge is of so 
 precise a nature that an answer may be given it is necessary, before 
 the application can be complied with, that those matters should be 
 denied on the oath of the applicant. But even if there be no specific 
 matter in the publication now in question before the Court; supposing 
 it to be a case of a general and strictly political nature of an attack 
 on the Church and State supposing it to be the case of a different, 
 nay of an opposite description to that of the paper now accused for 
 argument's sake I will suppose it to be any one of those publications 
 which have been lately under the consideration of your lordships, 
 and against which first a verdict, and then judgment have passed, so 
 that no man can now be suffered to deny their libellous nature still I 
 say that my learned friend, who obtained this Rule, must, before he can 
 make it absolute, show a single instance in which your lordships have 
 allowed such a libel to be prosecuted in this extraordinary manner, 
 by Information. It may be prosecuted ex-ojfficio by the law officers 
 of the Crown, or it may be indicted by an individual; but it cannot 
 be prosecuted in this unheard-of manner, by a person unknown to 
 the Court, and who, for any thing the Court can know, may have no 
 existence. If it may, then may any person come forward as a pro- 
 secutor: any gentleman at tho bar, who chances to be unoccupied, 
 may rise in his place and move; he will only have to say, " I call on 
 your lordships to put in motion the process of this Court; a libel has 
 been published, and I call on you to grant me this application." But 
 I think the court would exercise its discretion before it interposed to 
 grant a Criminal Information in such a case. I say it is a mere 
 novelty for the party who makes this application to be unknown to 
 the Court, and I will defy my learned friend to show a single instance 
 of the kind; at any rate, there is no one to be found since the statute 
 of William and Mary was passed for regulating proceedings of this 
 kind. It is unnecessary for me to waste the time of the Court in 
 showing the consequence of your lordships granting this Information. 
 Ii a person may come forward and apply, putting himself in the 
 office of public prosecutor (an office unknown in our law), what 
 would happen? Why, any gentleman at the bar, without retainer, 
 authority, or instructions any young amateur in prosecutions might 
 rise up and say, " I am to move for a Rule to show cause why a 
 Criminal Information should not be filed against A. B ," and he would 
 obtain it without more ado; nay, the process of the court would 
 immediately after is>ue, provided he only complied with the statu- 
 tory condition of entering into a recognizance for 20/., which, indeed, 
 any one might do for him. 1 say, if your lordships acquiesce in the 
 present application; if the Information is granted to my friend Mr. 
 Scarlett; I can sec no reason why it should not be granted to any
 
 176 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OP DURHAM. 
 
 other gentleman at the bar. My lords, I am exceedingly unwilling to 
 enter into the particular merits of this case; bnt I think I can satisfy 
 your lordships that, independent of the preliminary objection which I 
 have taken, this court cannot interpose to relieve the parlies in the 
 particular circumstances of this case; supposing those parties to be 
 the Durham clergy; but that it will leave them to their proper and 
 ordinary course of proceeding by Indictment. I think I could satisfy 
 your lordships that there is no ground for this Court's interposing, by 
 shortly adverting to the circumstances of the case; but it would be an 
 unpleasant discussion, as it respects the character of individuals, mem- 
 bers of an ecclesiastical body of great note, which is justly venerated 
 in this country. I say, my lords, I am extremely unwilling to be 
 dragged into the details connected with this case, unless I am told that 
 it is necessary by yonr lordships disposing of this preliminary objection. 
 
 The Judges consulted for several minutes, and while they were 
 deliberating, 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM said, perhaps your lordships will allow me to refer 
 you to a case; it is the only one that I can refer you to; for, as I said 
 before, this is the first time that an attempt of the sort has been made: 
 I allude to the King v. Phillips, in 4th Burr., 2009. That was a case 
 in which the then Attorney-general, in his place in Court, moved for 
 a Rule to show cause why a Criminal Information should not be filed, 
 and the Court said, " for whom do you apply?" 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE. Was that a case of public or private 
 libel? That was a libel upon a private individual. Was it not, Mr. 
 Brougham? 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. It was not a libel, my lord; it was for an offence 
 of a public nature. 
 
 MR. CARTER. It was for a misdemeanor, committed by a magis- 
 trate in the execution of his office. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE. Ah, it was an offence against some par- 
 ticular individual. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. Yes, my lord, and there the court said, " for whom 
 do you make this application?" when the Attorney-general immedi- 
 ately said, " I make it on behalf of the Crown." There the court seemed 
 to have reckoned that it was incumbent on them to ascertain who the 
 party applying was. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE. I think that was very properly said 
 to the Attorney-general. 1 recollect something of the same kind 
 happening here, when I said, " for whom do you move?" It was 
 replied, "I move individually;" there the counsel was appearing 
 in the character of any other gentleman at the bar; but if lie says I 
 move as Attorney-general, or generally for the Crown, that is the dis- 
 tinction. 
 
 The Judges again consulted for a short time, after which, 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE said It will not be convenient to take 
 the parts separately. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. Not to take them separately, did your lordship 
 say?
 
 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM. 177 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE. Yes. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. Then I liave further to request your lordship's 
 attention to the very strict manner in which the court has in all in- 
 stances required an affidavit denying the truth of any matters charged, 
 where those matters were specific enough to be made the subject of 
 denial by affidavit, or where any portion of the matter was so specific 
 as to be capable of being denied by affidavit. 
 
 MR. JUSTICE BAYLEY. If the libel charges a crime on an individual, 
 it must be denied; but not if the character of the libel is the same, 
 whether it is true or false. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. I apprehend that when a party is charged with 
 a libel, and that charge consists of any specific fact, that fart ought at 
 all events to be denied. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE. What is the fact that you say ought to 
 be denied? 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. There are several facts, my lord. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, what are they? state what they 
 are. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. The first is that which is alleged respecting the 
 Cathedral church and other churches of the city of Durham, namely, 
 that they did riot show the usual mark of respect to the royal family; 
 and this resolves itself into a charge against the clergy of Durham, 
 that they failed in paying the respect due to the royal family, by 
 forbidding the bells to be tolled on the demise of one of its most 
 considerable branches. That is the charge, and it rests upon a fact of 
 such a specific nature, that it might have been made the subject of a 
 distinct denial, and, we contend, ought to have been denied: if, indeed, 
 after all, this party, namely, the clergy of Durham, is the party con- 
 cerned in the present application. 
 
 MR. JUSTICE BAYLEY. In granting a criminal information there 
 must be some fact. The; question here is, did ihey pay that mark of 
 respect; and if that fact is not negatived on the part of the person 
 making this application, that will warrant the court in concluding that 
 the fact is true. We may assume that the bell was not tolled, that is 
 a matter for the discretion of the court. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. I do not mean to deny that it is entirely mat- 
 ter for the discretion of the court; because this whole proceeding is 
 an appeal to its discretionary powers; but it is equally clear that the 
 discretion will now be exercised, as it always has been, soundly, and 
 according to the known rules and principles long since established 
 by the court, and by which its discretion is distinctly limited. One of 
 those fixed rules is, that the party applying for a Criminal Information 
 shall deny the truth of the charge of winch lie complains. 1 have 
 already reminded your lordships of this principle, and that such an 
 application cannot be granted unless the party brings forward his 
 denial in the first instance. According to the principles of all the 
 decided cases, it is not enough to say that, be the matter true or false, 
 the publication is libellous, and should be prosecuted. Prosecuted it 
 may be, whether true or false, but not in this manner; the merits of
 
 178 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM. 
 
 the party applying for this extraordinary interference of the court are 
 the sole grounds of its interposition. For example there is the case 
 of the King v. Bate, on the Duke of Richmond's application, where 
 the matter was much discussed; and the general rule was laid down, 
 that whoever he the prosecutor, he must deny the truth of all specific 
 charges. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE. What is the subject matter of fact 
 here; your assertion is, that the clergy of Durham did not pay that 
 mark of respect which they ought to have paid in memory of the 
 deceased Queen. Now go on and read the rest, and let us see 
 whether any affidavit can be made with respect to the rest. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. In the Kingr. Bate it is laid down that when the 
 fact or any part of the fact charged is of a specific nature, it must be 
 denied. 
 
 MR. JUSTICE BATLET. Then we must look to what was the sub- 
 ject of that application; if a libel is published which imputes to a man 
 a crime, and he will not state by his affidavit that he is innocent of 
 that crime; in that case the court will say, " you are not a person to 
 whom we will give relief;" if a man is charged with a crime and he 
 neglects to negative that fact by affidavit, that entitles the court to 
 consider that the fact which is so charged and not negatived, is a 
 true fact. Now in this case, here is an imputation of a crime, and if 
 the court is to take the fact to be true, that is a ground why the court 
 should not interfere. But there may be a case, (I do not say that 
 there is one.) but there may be a case where the imputation is not a 
 charge of a crime, and there the fact not being denied may be taken 
 to be true; still the libel may justify this extraordinary mode of pro- 
 ceeding. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. That is the point at issue, my lord. Next I 
 have to submit that all, or almost all this paragraph is a charge against 
 a particular body, and that the body ought, in applying for this Rule, 
 to have negatived it by affidavit. Your lordship will recollect that it 
 is laid down in all the cases, that the highest as well as the lowest 
 parties, with the single exception of the Queen-Consort, in applying 
 to this court for an Information, fall equally within the rule, namely, 
 that their merits are to enter into the consideration of the court, and that 
 they are bound to remove the imputation from themselves when they 
 seek this peculiar remedy. 
 
 MR. JUSTICE HOLROYD. It is not so in every case; where a party 
 seeks for the interposition of a court, as in the case of a challenge for 
 instance, on account of the public safety and public peace, the court 
 does not refuse the information upon the motion of the party, though 
 the applicant be not blameless. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. Undoubtedly, my lord; but, nevertheless, lam 
 sure that your lordship will bear me out in the assertion, that there 
 never is an application to this Court for a Criminal Information on 
 account of a quarrel, in which the whole circumstances attending that 
 quarrel are not gone into, and the merits of the party making the ap- 
 plication scrupulously investigated. The party resisting the applica-
 
 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM. 179 
 
 tion is allowed to go at large into all the circumstances of the offence 
 committed, or alleged to he committed, by the party applying; these 
 are always most fully brought before the Court in order to show on 
 what ground the applicant stands. In order that tin; ends of justice 
 may be satisfied, a minute investigation of the conduct of both parties 
 is entered into by the Court: and though the conduct of the person 
 insulted is no defence in law for the person insulting, yet if it has been 
 blameworthy, it is held an answer to the demand made for leave to 
 proceed by Information. And now I am compel'ed, however reluc- 
 tant, to go into the merits of this ease; and I am !' treed to seek about 
 in order to ascertain the party with whom I am contending. It is 
 quite obvious that it must be some person connected with the Cathe- 
 dral of Durham. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE. Certainly it is not the conduct of the 
 Cathedral alone; it cannot be applied to them alone. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. When I make use of that expression, I mean 
 the clergy of the city the Cathedral and the city together for un- 
 doubtedly it refers to both, though most especially to the Cathedral. 
 It is distinctly sworn in the affidavit of the defendant, that those ob- 
 servations referred exclusively to the Durham clergy; and that they 
 did not apply to the clergy of the Church generally; and I still have 
 again to complain, even in this part of the argument, of not knowing 
 precisely whom I am contending with; because, for any thing I know, 
 it may be the very description of persons mentioned in the preamble 
 of the statute, " those malicious and contentious persons who, more of 
 late than in former times, have been engaged in prosecutions of this 
 kind." Hut whoever the persons may be who move in this matter, 
 it is plain, at any rate, that the merits of the parties of and concerning 
 whom this charge is made, are directly in issue before your lordships. 
 Now, in tracing the origin of this dissension, I have first of all to state, 
 that the altercations in which those clergymen nnd others have been 
 for some time past engaged, nrc such as to justify your lordships in 
 refusing to lend yourselves to their designs; and leaving these clerical 
 parties to their remedy by action, or by indictment before a grand 
 jury, that you will be justified in refusing to grant the request now 
 made. It is sworn by the defendant, that those clergymen have of 
 late, nnd for some years past, taken a very active part, not only in the 
 political dissensions of the country, but most especially in those locally 
 relating to the county and city of Durham. They were all on one 
 side, most active agents, who spared no pains to render themselves 
 serviceable to one party; and not only to thwart the designs, but to 
 blacken the character of their antagonists. 
 
 The LOUD CHIEF JUSTICE. This is upon the affidavit I suppose, 
 Mr. Brougham? 
 
 MH. BROUGHAM. It is in substance upon the affidavit, my lord; 
 the facts are set forth there with much particularity, and I shall come 
 to them immediately. I should IK; sorry now not to cuter into the 
 details, since I am forced to abandon my preliminary objection. I 
 may add that they not only made themselves the most active political
 
 180 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OP DURHAM. 
 
 agents, but that they scrupled at no means of annoyance, and hesi- 
 tated at no excess of falsehood and malignity in order to accomplish 
 their purposes; their secular, parly, factious, selfish purposes. I 
 should be sorry to annoy the ears of your lordships with a specimen 
 of their vile abuse. 
 
 MR. SCARLKTT. I do not find that in the affidavit. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. I mean the persons whose conduct I have al- 
 luded to. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE. Who are they? 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. Certain members of the clergy of the church of 
 Durham. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE then read the libel, after which he said, 
 " I do not see how it can apply to the clergy of Durham only." 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. I am to submit, my lord, that it does apply to 
 the church and clergy of Durham only. We have distinctly sworn 
 that it applies to them, and if we had no other means of showing it, 
 I submit that that is the fair construction of the commentaries on their 
 conduct; that it applies exclusively to them. It is made in the course 
 of remarks upon a particular thing done by the Durham clergy, and 
 stated in the alleged libel to be done by them alone. Undoubtedly 
 there are one or two severe expressions; the word " brutal" for in- 
 stance, is used, but the defendant may well say to that " non meus 
 hie sermo;" he copied the word from an attack made upon many per- 
 sons, and among others on himself, by one of those very clergymen 
 of Durham. In this attack the same word " brutal'" is most freely 
 used. The passage in the paragraph which says, "it is such conduct 
 that renders the very name of our Established clergy odious till it 
 stinks in the nostrils," is a strong, a harsh, and (if you will) a coarse 
 mode of speech. But, again, it is not the speech of the defendant. 
 For it is to be found in the writings of a venerable author; who says 
 of a certain body, that they are " as the Jlugex Stabuhim, and do 
 stink in the nose of God and his people." These expressions are ap- 
 plied by him not to such as the defendant or his party, but to higher 
 quarters. What if they are used to describe a clerical body? What 
 if that body be this very Cathedral of Durham? What if the writer 
 be one of the body himself? What if it be their very Bishop, who 
 thus strongly and somewhat coarsely describes them? 
 
 MR. JUSTICE BAYLEY. What year was that in? 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. He was a protestant bishop Bishop Barnes. It 
 was in the reign of Elizabeth. I only cite his lordship's words to 
 show that those expressions, harsh as they may seem to be, which the 
 defendant has used, are not without the warrantry of high authority, 
 upon a parallel occasion. Now I have to remind your lordshi-ps, not 
 only that the contents of the publication are true, but that it has been 
 provoked by the conduct of the clergy themselves, who have thought 
 proper to publish pamphlets filled with the most foul and false asper- 
 sions against this very defendant. One of them has written a tract, 
 in which lie distinctly terms Mr. Williams, if not by name, at least by 
 his designation as Editor of the Durham Chronicle, "a hireling and
 
 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM. 181 
 
 fulsome panegyrist;" an odious character, doubtless, and worthy of 
 all contempt; but not more hateful nor more despicable than the man 
 who combines with it in his own person, the part of an hireling ca- 
 lumniator; earning a portion of his hire by fulsome ilattery to his rich 
 and powerful employer, and working out the residue in foul slanders 
 of those who cannot or will not buy him. It is against such persons; 
 it is of and concerning such vocations, the scandal and disgrace of the 
 Church, not the establishment itself, that these remarks are made; it 
 is in such conduct, and such characters, that ihese strictures find their 
 justification, generally; but most of all is this defendant entitled thus 
 to express himself, who has been made the object of these mercenary 
 attacks. Another of the gentlemen, with his name, (a Mr. Philpotts) 
 publishes a pamphlet, in which he describes Mr. Williams as "a mi- 
 serable mercenary who eats the bread of prostitution, and panders to 
 the low appetites of those who cannot or who dare not cater for their 
 own malignity." I think that the coarseness and virulence with 
 which these observations have been made by those reverend gentle- 
 men, will at once be allowed fully to justify the remarks of the defen- 
 dant in return; and when your lordships see that abuse has been thus 
 bandied about on the one side and on the other, in the violence of con- 
 flicting secular passions, I trust that you will not lend yourselves to 
 the parties whose indecent animosity has drawn forth the comments 
 of the defendant, by permitting them to come into this court and seek 
 the protection reserved for those whose hands are pure, and whose 
 demeanor will bear the closest inspection. 
 
 Nor is it only individuals of the body who have mixed themselves 
 with such intemperance in the squabbles of party, and forgotten the 
 sacred character which should belong to their station. There was a 
 meeting of the whole clergy some time previous to the date of the 
 publication in question. It was a meeting an assembly officially 
 convened, and holden at the house of the Archdeacon of the Diocese. 
 Your lordships will find that the body of the clergy were there con- 
 vened, upon whose conduct as political men these remarks have 
 been made; and at that meeting they thought fit to pass a censure 
 in the most unmeasured terms, (amounting certainly to a breach of 
 privilege) upon a part at least of the Parliament to make an attack 
 upon what passed there, charging persons and parties with "having 
 been guilty in the highest places of conduct which would disgrace 
 the lowest." If any doubt remains as to whom these observations 
 were levelled at, the author of the address, and of the publication to 
 which I have already referred, in commenting on a mistake committed 
 by some one, removes that doubt, for he clearly shows that the address 
 referred to what passed in the House of Lords. Now I will, before 
 concluding, beg leave to give your lordships a sample of the decency 
 and regard for truth which guide those calumniators who are now 
 complaining of what they call false and scandalous libels. In the 
 pamphlet to which I first adverted, you will find statements which 
 are not only positively sworn to be as false as they are malignant, but 
 some of which arc so notoriously false, (though not more false than 
 VOL. i. 10
 
 182 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OP DURHAM. 
 
 foul, allow me to say) that I will venture to say no man, let him he 
 of what political description, or of what rank or class he may, can 
 fail to receive them with extreme disgust. Thus it is positively 
 asserted by one of those reverend partizans, that after the proceed- 
 ings in 1806, with respect to the late Queen, she never durst go to 
 court, but that she remained absent from court from 1806 down to 
 1814, and of course down to the date of the proceedings against her 
 that in consequence of what took place in 1S06, she remained 
 under a CLOUD; whereas, it is as notorious as the sun at noonday, 
 that the very party who since persecuted her, insisted, on her being 
 received at court, the instant that they got into office in 1807; that it 
 was at their instigation she was received at court, and that she con- 
 stantly attended it afterwards while the late King* retained his health; 
 that so far from those ministers being able to maintain that the pro- 
 ceedings in 1806 had left her Majesty under a CLOUD, their objection 
 to these proceedings was one of the grounds upon which they made 
 her the stepping-stone to place and power; and that, not satisfied with 
 the resolution of 1806 acquiting her of guilt, they made a point of 
 revising all that had been done, and entered, as far as the strongest 
 words could convey it, their solemn protest against all the proceedings 
 which had taken place against her, leaving on record their most ample 
 assertion of her innocence. I give you this as a specimen, (for it is 
 only by sample that I shall deal with so foul a cargo); it is a specimen 
 of the conduct of those clergymen in their secular capacity of political 
 agents, in which they have so greately abused the name the more 
 sacred name that ought to belong to them. In another passage of 
 the same pamphlet, her late Majesty is spoken of in terms closely 
 resembling those for which another reverend slanderer is now suffer- 
 ing the sentence of the law. If there be a squabble between con- 
 flicting parties in a county, as to its local politics; and if in the heats 
 of the controversy, the character of an individual or body is assailed, 
 let him bring his action in the ordinary manner, or, if he pleases, 
 prefer a Bill of Indictment. In the present case I submit to your 
 lordships, that, independent of the primary objection which I have 
 taken, namely, that this is the first time an application of the kind 
 has been made without the appearance of the party in his own name 
 independent of the nature of the publication to which it refers I 
 submit that your lordships will not feel justified in granting the appli- 
 cation which has been made without the appearance of the party in 
 his own name; and that you will leave those who made it to their 
 ordinary remedy by Indictment, seeing that their own conduct has 
 called forth the strictures of which they complain, and that they were 
 the first to slander their neighbor. 
 
 * George III.
 
 SPEECH 
 
 DEFENDANT, AT THE DURHAM ASSIZES, 
 
 AUGUST 9, 1822. 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY: My 
 learned friend, the Attorney-general for the Bishop of Durham, hav- 
 ing at considerable length offered to you various conjectures as to the 
 line of defence which he supposed I should pursue upon this occasion; 
 having nearly exhausted every topic which I was not very likely to 
 urge, and elaborately traeed, with much fancy, all the ground on 
 which I could hardly be expected to tread perhaps it may be as 
 well that /should now, in my turn, take the liberty of stating to you 
 what really is the defendant's case, and that you should know from 
 myself what I do intend to lay before you. As my learned friend 
 has indulged in so many remarks upon what I shall not say, 1 may 
 take leave to offer a single observation on what ho has said; and I 
 think I may appeal to any one of you who ever served upon a jury, 
 or witnessed a trial, and ask if you ever, before this day, saw a public 
 prosecutor who stated his case with so much art and ingenuity 
 wrought up his argument with such pains wandered into so large 
 a field of declamation or altogether performed his task in so elabo- 
 rate and eloquent a fashion as the Attorney-general has done upon 
 the present occasion. I do not blame this course. I venture not 
 even to criticise the discretion he has exercised in the management 
 of his cause; and I am far indeed from complaining of it. But I 
 call upon you to declare that inference which I think you must 
 already have drawn in your own minds, and come to that conclusion 
 at which I certainly have arrived that he felt what a laboring case 
 fie had that lie was aware how very different his situation to-day 
 is from any he ever before knew in a prosecution for libel and that 
 the extraordinary pressure of the difficulties he had to struggle with, 
 drove him to so unusual a course. lie has called the defendant 
 " that iinlmpjiy num." Unhappy he will be indeed, but not the 
 only unhappy man in this country, if the doctrines laid down l>y my 
 learned friend are sanctioned by your verdict; for those doctrines, I
 
 184 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM. 
 
 fearlessly tell you, must, if established, inevitably destroy the whole 
 liberties of us all. Not that he has ventured to deny the right of 
 discussion generally upon all subjects, even upon the present, or to 
 screen from free inquiry the foundations of the Established Church, 
 and the conduct of its ministers as a body, (which I shall satisfy you 
 are not even commented on in the publication before you). Far from 
 my learned friend is it to impugn those rights in the abstract; nor in- 
 deed have I ever yet heard a prosecutor for libel an Attorney-gene- 
 ral (and I have seen a good many in my time) whether of our Lord 
 the King or our Lord of Durham, who, while in the act of crushing 
 every thing like unfettered discussion, did not preface his address to 
 the jury with " God forbid that the fullest inquiry should not be 
 allowed;" but then the admission had invariably a condition follow- 
 ing close behind, which entirely retracted the concession "provided 
 always the discussion be carried on harmlessly, temperately, calmly" 
 that is to say, in such a manner as to leave the subject untouched, and 
 the reader unmoved; to satisfy the public prosecutor, and to please the 
 persons attacked. 
 
 My learned friend has asked if the defendant knows that the 
 Church is established by law? He knows it, and so do I. The 
 Church is established by law, as the civil government as all the 
 institutions of the country are established by law as all the offices 
 under the Crown are established by law, and all who fill them are 
 by the law protected. It is not more established, nor more protected, 
 than those institutions, officers, and office-bearers, each of which is 
 recognised and favored by the law as much as the Church: but I 
 never yet have heard, and I trust I never shall; least of all do I 
 expect in the lesson which your verdict this day will read, to hear, 
 that those officers and office-bearers, and all those institutions, sacred 
 and secular, and the conduct of all, whether laymen or priests, who 
 administer them, are not the fair subjects of open, untrammelled, 
 manly, zealous, and even vehement discussion, as long as this coun- 
 try pretends to liberty, and prides herself on the possession of a Free 
 Press. 
 
 In the publication before you, the defendant has not attempted to 
 dispute the high character of the Church; on that establishment or its 
 members, generally, he has not endeavored to fix any stigma. Those 
 topics, then, are foreign to the present inquiry, and I have no interest 
 in discussing them; yet after what has fallen from my learned friend, 
 it is fitting that I should claim for this defendant, and for all others, 
 the right to question, freely to question, not only the conduct of the 
 ministers of the Established Church, but even the foundations of the 
 Church itself. It is indeed unnecessary for my present purpose, be- 
 cause I shall demonstrate that the paper before you does not touch 
 upon those points ; but unnecessary though it be, as my learned 
 friend has defied me, I will follow him to the field, and say, that if 
 there is any one of the institutions of the country, which more em- 
 phatically than all the rest, justifies us in arguing strongly, feeling 
 powerfully, and expressing our sentiments as well as urging our rea-
 
 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM. 185 
 
 sons with vehemence, it is that branch of the state which, because it 
 is sacred, because it bears connection with higher principles than any 
 involved in the mere management of worldly concerns, for that very 
 reason, entwines itself with deeper feelings, and must needs be dis- 
 cussed, if discussed at all, with more warmth and zeal than any other 
 part of our system is fitted to rouse. But if any hierarchy in all the 
 world is bound on every principle of consistency if any Church 
 should be forward not only to stiller but provoke discussion, to stand 
 upon that title and challenge the most unreserved inquiry it is the 
 Protestant Church of England; first, because she has nothing to dread 
 from it; secondly, because she is the very creature of free inquiry 
 the offspring of repeated revolutions and the most reformed of the 
 reformed churches of Europe. But surely if there is any one corner 
 of Protestant Europe where men ought not to be rigorously judged 
 in ecclesiastical controversy where a large allowance should be made 
 for the conflict of irreconcilable opinions where the harshness of 
 jarring tenets should be patiently borne, and strong, or even violent 
 language, be not too narrowly watched it is this very realm in which 
 we live under three different ecclesiastical orders, and owe allegiance 
 to a sovereign, who, in one of his kingdoms, is the head of the church, 
 acknowledged as such by all men; while, in another, neither he nor 
 any earthly being is allowed to assume that name a realm com- 
 posed of three great divisions, in one of which Prelacy is favored by 
 law and approved in practice by an Episcopalian people; while, in 
 another, it is protected indeed by law, but abjured in practice by a 
 nation of sectaries, Catholic and Presbyterian; and, in a third, it is 
 abhorred alike by law and in practice, repudiated by the whole in- 
 stitutions of the country, scorned and detested by the whole of its 
 inhabitants. His Majesty, almost at the time in which I am speaking, 
 is about to make a progress through the northern provinces of this 
 island, accompanied by certain of his chosen counsellors, a portion of 
 men who enjoy unenvied, and in an equal degree, the admiration of 
 other countries and the wonder of their own and there the Prince 
 will see much loyalty, great learning, some splendor, the remains of 
 an ancient monarchy, and of the institutions which made it flourish. 
 But one thing he will not sen. Si range as it may seem, and to many 
 who hear me incredible, from one end of the country to the other 
 he will see no such thing as a bishop; not such a thing is to be 
 found from the Tweed to John o' Groats; not a mitre; no, nor so much 
 as a minor canon, or even a rural dean; and in all the land not one 
 single curate, so entirely rude and barbarous are they in Scotland; in 
 such outer darkness do they sit, that they support no cathedrals, main- 
 tain no pluralists, suffer non-residence; nay, the poor benighted crea- 
 tures are ignorant even of tithes. Not a sheaf, or a lamb, or a pi?, 
 or the value of a plough-penny do the hapless mortals render from 
 year's end to year's end! Piteous as their lot is, what makes it infi- 
 nitely more touching, is to witness the return of good for evil in the 
 demeanor of this wretched race. Under all this cruel neglect of their 
 spiritual concerns, they are actually the most loyal, contented, moral, 
 
 1C*
 
 186 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM. 
 
 and religious people anywhere, perhaps, to be found in the world. Let 
 us hope (many, indeed, there are, not afar off, who will with unfeign- 
 ed devotion pray) that his Majesty may return safe from the dangers 
 of his excursion into such a country an excursion most perilous 
 to a certain portion of the church, should his royal mind be infected 
 with a taste for cheap establishments, a working clergy, and a pious 
 congregation! 
 
 But compassion for our brethren in the north has drawn me aside 
 from my purpose, which was merely to remind you how preposterous 
 it is in a country of which the ecclesiastical polity is framed upon 
 plans so discordant, and the religious tenets themselves are so various, 
 to require any very measured expressions of men's opinions, upon 
 questions of church government. And if there is any part of Eng- 
 land in which an ample license ought more especially to be admitted 
 in handling such matters, I say without hesitation it is this very 
 Bishopric, where in the 19th century, you live under a Palatine 
 Prince, the Lord of Durham; where the endowment of the hierarchy, 
 I may not call it enormous, but I trust I shall be permitted without 
 offence to term splendid; where the establishment I dare not whisper 
 proves grinding to the people, but I will rather say is an incalculable, 
 an inscrutable blessing only it is prodigiously large; showered down 
 in a profusion somewhat overpowering; and laying the inhabitants 
 under a loadofobligaiion overwhelming by its weight. It is in Durham 
 where the Church is endowed with a splendor and a power unknown in 
 monkish times and popish countries, and the clergy swarm in every 
 corner, an' it were the patrimony of St. Peter it is here where all man- 
 ner of conflicts are at each moment inevitable between the people and 
 the priests, that I feel myself warranted on their behalf, and for their 
 protection for the sake of the Establishment, and as the discreet 
 advocate of that Church and that clergy for the defence of their very 
 existence to demand the most unrestrained discussion for their title 
 and their actings under it. For them in this ago, to screen their con- 
 duct from investigation is to stand self-convicted; to shrink from the 
 discussion of their title, is to confess a flaw; he must be the most 
 shallow, the most blind of mortals, who does not at once perceive 
 that if that title is protected only by the strong arm of the law, it be- 
 comes not worth the parchment on which it is engrossed, or the wax 
 that dangles to it for a seal. I have hitherto all along assumed, that there 
 is nothing impure in the practice under the system; I am admitting that 
 every person engaged in its administration does every one act which 
 he ought, and which the law expects him to do; I am supposing that 
 up to this hour not one unworthy member has entered within its pale; 
 I am even presuming that up to this moment not one of those indi- 
 viduals has slept beyond the strict line of his sacred functions, or 
 given the slightest offence or annoyance to any human being. I am 
 taking it for granted that they all act the part of good shepherds, 
 making the welfare of their flock their first care, and only occasionally 
 bethinking them of shearing in order to prevent the too luxuriant 
 growth of the fleece proving an incumbrance, or to eradicate disease.
 
 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OP DURHAM. 187 
 
 If, however, those operations be so constant that the flock actually 
 live under the knife; if the shepherds are so numerous, and employ 
 so large a troop of the watchful and eager animals that attend them 
 (some of them too with a cross of the fox, or even the wolf, in their 
 breed) can it be wondered at, if the poor creatures thus fleeced, and 
 hunted, and barked at, and snapped at, and from time to time wor- 
 ried, should now and then bleat, dream of preferring the rot to the 
 shears, and draw invidious, possibly disadvantageous comparisons 
 between the wolf without, and the shepherd within the fold it can- 
 not be helped; it is in the nature of things that suffering should beget 
 complaint; but for those who have caused the pain to complain of 
 the outcry and seek to punish it for those who have goaded to 
 scourge and to gag, is the meanest of all injustice. It is moreover 
 the most pitiful folly for the clergy to think of retaining their power, 
 privileges, and enormous wealth, without allowing free vent for com- 
 plaints against abuses in the Establishment and delinquency in its 
 members; and in this prosecution they have displayed that folly in 
 its supreme degree. I will even put it that there has been an attack 
 on the hierarchy itself; I do so for argument's sake only; denying all 
 the while, that any thing like such an attack is to be found within the 
 four corners of this publication. But suppose it had been otherwise; 
 I will show you the sort of language in which the wisest and the 
 best of our countrymen have spoken of that Establishment. I am 
 about to read a passage in the immortal writings of one of the great- 
 est men, I may say, the greatest genius, which this country or Europe, 
 has in modern times produced. You shall hear what the learned 
 and pious Milton has said of prelacy. He is arguing against an 
 Episcopalian antagonist, whom, from his worldly and unscriptural 
 doctrines, he calls a " Carnal Text man;" and it signifies not that we 
 may differ widely in opinion with this illustrious man; I only give 
 his words as a sample of the license with which he was permitted to 
 press his argument, and which in those times went unpunished: 
 
 "Thai which he imputes as sacrilege to his country, is the only 
 way left them to purge that abominable sacrilege out of the land, 
 which none but the prelates are guilty of; who for the discharge of 
 one single duty receive and keep that which might be enough to 
 satisfy the labors of many painful ministers better deserving than 
 themselves who possess huge benefices for lazy performances, great 
 promotions only for the exercise of a cruel disgospelling jurisdiction 
 who engross many pluralities under a non-resident and slumber- 
 ing dispatch of souls who let hundreds of parishes famish in one 
 diocese, while they the prelates are mute, and yet enjoy that wealth 
 that would furnish all those dark places with able supply; and yet 
 they eat and yet they live at the rate of earls, and yet hoard up; they 
 who chase away all the faithful shepherds of the flock, and bring in 
 a dearth of spiritual food, robbing thereby the church of her dearest 
 treasure, and sending herds of souls starving to hell, while they feast 
 and riot upon the labors of hireling curates, consuming and purloin- 
 ing even that which by their foundation is allowed and left to the
 
 188 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OP DURHAM. 
 
 poor, and the reparation of the church. These are they who have 
 bound the land with the sin of sacrilege, from which mortal engage- 
 ment we shall never be free, till we have totally removed with one 
 labor, as one individual thing, prelaty and sacrilege." " Thus have 
 ye heard, readers," (he continues, after some advice to the Sovereign, 
 to check the usurpations of the hierarchy) "how many shifts and 
 wiles the prelates have invented to save their ill-got booty. And if 
 it be true, as in Scripture it is foretold, that pride and covetousness 
 are the sure marks of those false prophets which are to come, then 
 boldly conclude these to be as great seducers as any of the latter 
 times. For between this and the judgment day do not look for any 
 arch-deceivers, who in spite of reformation will use more craft, or less 
 shame to defend their love of the world and their ambition, than 
 these prelates have done."* 
 
 If Mr. Williams had dared to publish the tithe part of what I have 
 just read; if any thing in sentiment or in language approaching to it 
 were to be found in his paper, I should not stand before you with the 
 confidence which I now feel; but what he has published forms a 
 direct contrast to the doctrines contained in this passage. Nor is such 
 language confined to the times in which Milton lived, or to a period 
 of convulsion when prelacy was in danger. I will show you that in 
 tranquil, episcopal times, when the church existed peacefully and 
 securely as by law established, some of its most distinguished mem- 
 bers, who have added to its stability as well as its fame, by the autho- 
 rity of their learning and the purity of their lives, the fathers and 
 brightest ornaments of that church, have used expressions nearly as 
 free as those which I have cited from Milton, and tenfold stronger 
 than any thing attributed to the defendant. I will read you a passage 
 from Bishop Burnet, one of those Whig founders of the Constitution, 
 whom the Attorney-general has so lavishly praised. He says, 
 
 " I have lamented during my whole life that I saw so little true 
 zeal among our clergy; I saw much of it in the clergy of the Church 
 of Rome, though it is both ill-directed and ill-conducted; I saw much 
 zeal, likewise, throughout the foreign churches." 
 
 Now comparisons are hateful to a proverb; and it is for making a 
 comparison that the defendant is to-day prosecuted; for his words can 
 have no application to the church generally, except in the way of 
 comparison. And with whom does the venerable Bishop here com- 
 pare the clergy? Why, with Antichrist with the Church of Home 
 casting the balance in her favor giving the advantage to our 
 ghostly adversary. Next comes he to give the Dissenters the prefer- 
 ence over our own clergy: a still more invidious topic; for it is one 
 of the laws which govern theological controversy almost as regularly 
 as gravitation governs the universe, that the mutual rancor of conflict- 
 ing sects is inversely as their distance from each other; and with such 
 hatred do they regard those who are separated by the slightest shade 
 of opinion, that your true intolerant priest abhors a pious sectary far 
 
 * Apology for Smectymnuus published in 1G42.
 
 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM. 189 
 
 more devoutly than a blasphemer or an atheist: yet to the sectary also 
 does the good Bishop give a decided preference: 
 
 "The dissenters have a great deal (that is of zeal) among them, 
 but I must own that the main body of our clergy has always appeared 
 dead and lifeless to me; and instead of animating one another, they 
 seem rather to lay one another asleep." " I say it with great regret," 
 (adds the Bishop) " I have observed the clergy in all the places through 
 which I have travelled, Papists, Lutherans, Calvinists and Dissenters; 
 but of them all, our clergy is much the most remiss in their labors in 
 private, and the least severe in their lives. And let me say this freely 
 to you, now I am out of the reach of envy and censure;" (he 
 bequeathed his work to be given to the world after his death) "unless 
 a better spirit possess the clergy, arguments and, which is more, laws 
 and authority will not prove strong enough to preserve the church."* 
 
 I will now show you the opinion of a very learned and virtuous 
 writer, who \vas much followed in his day, and whose book, at that 
 time, formed one of the manuals by which our youth were taught 
 the philosophy of morals to prepare them for their theological studies, 
 I mean Dr. Hartley: 
 
 " I choose to speak of what falls under the observation of all serious 
 attentive persons in the kingdom. The superior clergy are in general 
 ambitious, and eager in the pursuit of riches flatterers of the great, 
 and subservient to party interest negligent of their own particular 
 charges, and also of the inferior clergy. The inferior clergy imitate 
 their superiors, and in general take little more care of their parishes 
 than barely what is necessary to avoid the censure of the law; and 
 the clergy of all ranks are in general either ignorant, or if they do 
 apply, it is rather to profane learning, to philosophical or political 
 matters, than in the study of the Scriptures, of the oriental languages, 
 and the Fathers. I say this is in general the case; that is, far the 
 greater part of the clergy of all ranks in the kingdom are of this 
 kind." 
 
 I here must state that the passage I have just read is very far from 
 meeting my approval, any more than it speaks the defendant's senti- 
 ments, and especially in its strictures upon the inferior clergy; for cer- 
 tainly it is impossible to praise too highly those pious and useful men, 
 the resident, working parish priests of this country. I speak not of 
 the dignitaries, the pluralists and sinecurists, but of men neither pos- 
 sessing the higher preferments of the church, nor placed in that 
 situation of expectancy so dangerous to virtue; the hard working, and 
 I fear too often hard living, resident clergy of this kingdom, who are 
 an ornament to their station, and who richly deserve that which in 
 too many instances is almost all the reward they receive, the gratitude 
 and veneration of the people committed to their care. But I read 
 this passage from Dr. Hartley, not as a precedent followed by the 
 defendant; for lie has said nothing approaching to it not as propound- 
 ing doctrine authorised by the fact; or which in reasoning he approves 
 
 * History of His own Times, ii, Gil.
 
 190 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OP DURHAM. 
 
 but only for the purpose of showing to what lengths such discussion 
 of ecclesiastical abuses, (which, it seems, we are now, for the first 
 time, to hold our peace about) was carried near a century ago, when 
 the freedom of speech, now to be stifled as licentiousness, went not 
 only unpunished, but unquestioned and unblamed. To take a much 
 later period, I hold in my hand an attack upon the hierachy by one 
 of their own body a respectable and beneficed clergyman in the 
 sister county Palatine of Chester, who undertook to defend the 
 Christian religion, itself the basis, I presume I may venture to call it, 
 of the Church, against Thomas Paine. In the course of so pious a 
 work, which he conducted most elaborately, as you may perceive by 
 the size of this volume, he inveighs in almost every page against the 
 abuses of the Establishment, but in language which I am very far 
 from adopting. In one passage is the following energetic, and I may 
 add. somewhat violent invective, which I will read, that you may see 
 how a man, unwearied in the care of souls, and so zealous a Christian 
 that he is in the act of confuting infidels and putting scoffers to silence, 
 may yet, in the very course of defending the church and its faith, use 
 language, any one word of which, if uttered by the defendant, would 
 make my learned friend shudder at the license of the modern press 
 upon sacred subjects. 
 
 " We readily grant, therefore, you see, my countrymen, that the cor- 
 ruptions of Christianity shall be purged and done away; and we are 
 persuaded the wickedness of Christians so called, the lukewarmness 
 of professors, and the reiterated attacks of infidels upon the Gospel, 
 shall all, under the guidance of infinite wisdom, contribute to accom- 
 plish this end." 
 
 I have read this sentence to show you the spirit of piety in which 
 the work is composed; now see what follows: 
 
 " The lofty looks of lordly prelates shall be brought low; the super- 
 cilious airs of downy doctors and perjured pluralists shall be humbled; 
 the horrible sacrilege of non-residents, who shear the fleece, and leave 
 the flock thus despoiled to the charge of uninterested hirelings that care 
 not for them, shall be avenged on their impious heads. Intemperate 
 priests, avaricious clerks, and buckish parsons, those curses of Chris- 
 tendom, shall be confounded. All secular hierarchies in the church 
 shall be tumbled into ruin; lukewarm formalists of every denomina- 
 tion, shall call to the rocks and mountains to hide them from the wrath 
 of the Lamb." 
 
 This is the language these are the lively descriptions these the 
 warm, and I will not hesitate to say, exaggerated pictures which those 
 reverend authors present of themselves; these are the testimonies 
 which they bear to the merits of one another; these are opinions com- 
 ing, not from the enemy without, but from the true, zealous, and even 
 intemperate friend within. And can it be matter of wonder that laymen 
 should sometimes raise their voices tuned to the discords of the sacred 
 choir? And are they to be punished for what secures to clergymen 
 followers, veneration, and preferment? But I deny that Mr. Williams 
 is of the number of followers; I deny that he has taken a leaf or a
 
 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM. 191 
 
 line out of such books; I deny that there is any sentiment of this cast, 
 or any expression approaching to those of Dr. Simpson, in the publi- 
 cation before you. But I do contend that if the real friends of the 
 church, if its own members, can safely indulge in such language, it is 
 ten thousand times more lawful for a layman, like the defendant, to 
 make the harmless observations which he has published, and in which 
 I defy any man to show me one expression hostile to our ecclesiastical 
 establishment. 
 
 [Mr. Brougham then read the following passage from the libel:] 
 " We know not whether any actual orders were issued to prevent 
 this customary sign of mourning; but the omission plainly indicates 
 the kind of spirit which predominates among our clergy. Yet these 
 men profess to be followers of Jesus Christ, to walk in his footsteps, 
 to teach his precepts, to inculcate his spirit, to promote harmony, cha- 
 rity, and Christian love! Out upon such hypocrisy!" 
 
 That you may understand the meaning of this passage, it is neces- 
 sary for me to set before you, the picture my learned friend was pleased 
 to draw of the clergy of the Diocese of Durham, and I shall recall it 
 to your minds almost in his own words. According to him they stand 
 in a peculiarly unfortunate situation; they are, in truth, the most in- 
 jured of men. They all, it seems, entertained the same generous sen- 
 timent with the rest of their countrymen, though they did not express 
 them in the old, free, English manner, by openly condemning the pro- 
 ceedings against the late Queen; and after the course of unexampled 
 injustice against which she victoriously struggled had been followed 
 by the needless infliction of inhuman torture, to undermine a frame 
 whose spirit no open hostility could daunt, and extinguish a life so long 
 embittered by the same foul arts after that great princess had ceased 
 to harass her enemies (if I may be allowed thus to speak, applying, 
 as they did, by the perversion of all language, those names to the 
 victim which belong to the tormentor) after her glorious but unhappy 
 life had closed, and that princely head was at last laid low by death, 
 which, living, all oppression had only the more illustriously exalted 
 the venerable the Clergy of Durham, I am now told for the first time, 
 though less forward in giving vent to their feelings than the rest of 
 their fellow-citizens though not so vehement in their indignation at 
 (he matchless and unmanly persecution of the Queen though not so 
 unbridled in their joy at her immortal triumph, nor so loud in their 
 lamentations over her mournful and untimely end did, nevertheless, 
 in reality, all the while, deeply sympathise with her sufferings, in the 
 bottom of their reverend hearts! When all the resources of the most 
 ingenious cruelty hurried her to a fate without parallel if not so cla- 
 morous as others, they did not feH the least of all the members of the 
 community their grief was in truth too deep for utterance sorrow 
 clung round their bosoms, weighed upon their tongues, stifled every 
 sound and, when all the rest of mankind, of all sects and of all na- 
 tions, freely gave vent to feelings of our common nature, THRIH 
 silence, the contrast which THEY displayed to the rest of their species, 
 proceeded from the greater depth of their affliction; they said the less
 
 192 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OP DURHAM. 
 
 because they felt the more! Oh! talk of hypocrisy after this! Most 
 consummate of all the hypocrites! After instructing your chosen, 
 official advocate to stand forward with such a defence such an expo- 
 sition of your motives to dare utter the word hypocrisy, and com- 
 plain of those who charged you with it! This is indeed to insult 
 common sense, and outrage the feelings of the whole human race! If 
 you were hypocrites before, you were downright, frank, honest hypo- 
 crites to what you have now made yourselves and surely, for all 
 you have ever done, or ever been charged with, your worst enemies 
 must be satiated with the humiliation of this day, its just atonement, 
 and ample retribution! 
 
 If Mr. Williams had known the hundredth part of this at the time 
 of her Majesty's demise if he had descried the least twinkling of 
 the light which has now broke upon us, as to the real motives of their 
 actions I am sure this cause would never have been tried; because 
 to have any one of his strictures upon their conduct, would have been 
 not only an act of the blackest injustice it would have been per- 
 fectly senseless. But can he be blamed for his ignorance, when such 
 pains were taken to keep him in the dark? Can it be wondered at 
 that he was led astray, when he had only so false a guide to their 
 motives as their conduct, unexplained, afforded? When they were so 
 anxious to mislead, by facts and deeds, is his mistake to be so severely 
 criticised? Had he known the real truth, he must have fraternised 
 with them; embraced them cordially; looked up with admiration to 
 their superior sensibility; admitted that he who feels most, by an 
 eternal law of our nature, is least disposed to express his feelings; and 
 lamented that his own zeal was less glowing than theirs; but ignorant 
 and misguided as he was, it is no great marvel that he did not rightly 
 know the real history of their conduct, until about three-quarters of 
 an hour ago, when the truth burst in upon us, that all the while they 
 were generously attached to the cause of weakness and misfortune! 
 
 Gentlemen, if the country, as well as Mr. Williams, has been all 
 along so deceived, it must be admitted that it is not from the proba- 
 bilities of the case. Judging beforehand, no doubt, any one must 
 have expected the Durham clergy of all men, to feel exactly as they 
 are now, for the first time, ascertained to have ft,- It. They are Chris- 
 tians; outwardly at least, they profess the gospel of charity and peace; 
 they beheld oppression in its foulest shape; malignity and all unchari- 
 tableness putting on their most hideous forms; measures pursued to 
 gratify prejudices in a particular quarter, in defiance of the wishes of 
 the people, and the declared opinions of the soundest judges of each 
 party; and all with the certain tendency to plunge the nation in civil 
 discord. If for a moment they had been led away by a dislike of 
 cruelty and of civil war, to express displeasure at such perilous doings, 
 no man could have charged them with political meddling; and when 
 they beheld truth and innocence triumph over power, they might as 
 Christian ministers, calling to mind the original of their own church, 
 have indulged without offence in some little appearance of gladness; 
 a calm, placid satisfaction, on so happy an event, would not have been
 
 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM. 193 
 
 unbecoming their sacred station. When they found that her suffer- 
 ings were to have no end; that new pains were inflicted in revenge 
 for her escape from destruction, and new tortures devised to exhaust 
 the vital powers of her whom open, lawless violence had failed to 
 subdue we might have expected some slight manifestation of disap- 
 proval from holy men who, professing to inculcate loving-kindness, 
 tender mercy, and good will to all, offer up their daily prayers for 
 those who are desolate and oppressed. When at last the scene 
 closed, and there was an end of that persecution which death alone 
 could stay; but when not even her unhappy fate could glut the re- 
 venge of her enemies; and they who had harassed her to death now 
 exhausted their malice in reviling the memory of their victim; if 
 among them had been found, during her life, some miscreant under 
 the garb of a priest, who, to pay his court to power, had joined in 
 trampling upon the defenceless; even such a one, bear he the form of 
 a man, with a man's heart throbbing in his bosom, might have felt 
 even his fawning, sordid, calculating malignity assuaged by the hand 
 of death; even he might have left the tomb to close upon the suffer- 
 ings of the victim. All probability certainly favored the supposition, 
 that the clergy of Durham would riot take part against the injured, be- 
 cause the oppressor was powerful; and that the prospect of emolument 
 would not make them witness with dry eyes and hardened hearts the 
 close of a life which they had contributed to embitter and destroy. But 
 I am compelled to say that their whole conduct has falsified those ex- 
 pectations. They sided openly, strenuously, forwardly, officiously, 
 with power, in the oppression of a woman, whose wrongs this day 
 they for the first time pretend to bewail in their attempt to cozen you 
 out of a verdict, behind which they may skulk from the inquiring eyes 
 of the people. Silent and subdued in their tone as they were on the 
 demise of the unhappy Queen, they could make every bell in all their 
 chimes peal when gain was to be expected by flattering present 
 greatness. Then they could send up addresses, flock to public meet- 
 ings, and load the press with their libels, and make the pulpit ring 
 with their sycophancy, filling up to the brim the measure of their 
 adulation to the reigning monarch, Head of the Church, and Dispenser 
 of its Patronage. 
 
 In this contrast originated the defendant's feelings, and hence the 
 strictures which form the subject of these proceedings. I say the pub- 
 lication refers exclusively to the clergy of this city and its suburbs, 
 and especially to such parts of that clergy as were concerned in the 
 act of disrespect towards her late Majesty, which forms the subject of 
 the alleged libel; but I deny that it has any reference whatever to the 
 rest of the clergy, or evinces any designs hostile either to the stability 
 of the church, or the general character and conduct of its ministers. 
 My learned friend has said that Mr. Williams had probably been bred 
 a sectary, and retained sectarian prejudices. No argument is neces- 
 sary to refute this supposition. The passage which lias been read to 
 you carries with it the conviction that he is no sectary, and entertains 
 no schismatical views against the church; for there is a more severe 
 VOL. i. 17
 
 194 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM. 
 
 attack upon the sectaries themselves, than upon the clergy of Durham. 
 No man can have the least hesitation in saying, that the sentiments 
 breathed in it are any thing but those of a sectary. For myself, I am 
 far from approving the contemptuous terms in which he has expressed 
 himself of those who dissent from the Establishment; and I think he 
 has not spoken of them in the tone of decent respect that should be 
 observed to so many worthy persons, who, though they differ from 
 the church, differ from it on the most conscientious grounds. This is 
 the only part of the publication of which I cannot entirely approve, 
 but it is not for this that he is prosecuted. Then, what is the mean- 
 ing of the obnoxious remarks? Are they directed against the Estab- 
 lishment? Are they meant to shake or degrade it? I say that no 
 man who reads them can entertain a moment's doubt in his mind, 
 that they were excited by the conduct of certain individuals, and the 
 use which he makes of that particular conduct, the inference which 
 he draws from it, is not invective against the Establishment, but a 
 regret that it should by such conduct be lowered. He says no more 
 than this: "These are the men who do the mischief; ignorant and 
 wild fanatics are crowding the tabernacles, whilst the church is 
 deserted," and he traces, not with exultation but with sorrow, the 
 cause of the desertion of the church, and the increase of conventicles. 
 " Here," says he, " I have a fact which accounts for the clergy sink- 
 ing in the estimation of the communify, and I hold up this mirror, not 
 to excite hostility towards the Established Church, nor to bring its 
 ministers into contempt among their flocks, but to teach and to reclaim 
 those particular persons who are the disgrace and danger of the Estab- 
 lishment, instead of being, as they ought, its support and its orna- 
 ment." He holds up to them that mirror in which they may see 
 their own individual misconduct, and calculate its inevitable effects 
 upon the security and honor of the establishment which they disgrace. 
 This is no lawyer-like gloss upon the passage no special pleading 
 construction, or far-fetched refinement of explanation I give the 
 plain and obvious sense which every man of ordinary understanding 
 must affix to it. If you say that such an one disgraces his profession, 
 or that he is a scandal to the cloth he wears, (a common form of 
 speech, and one never more in men's mouths than within the last 
 fortnight, when things have happened to extort an universal expres- 
 sion of pain, sorrow, and shame,) do you mean by such lamentations 
 to undermine the Establishment? In saying that the purity of the 
 cloth is defiled by individual misconduct, it is clear that you cast no 
 imputation on the cloth generally; for an impure person could not 
 contaminate a defiled cloth. Just so has the defendant expressed 
 himself, and in this light I will put his case to you. If he had thought 
 that the whole Establishment was bad; that all its ministers were time- 
 servers, who, like the spaniel, would crouch and lick the hand that 
 fed it, but snarl and bite at one which had nothing to bestow fawn- 
 ing upon rich and liberal patrons, and slandering all that were too 
 proud or too poor to bribe them; if he painted the church as founded 
 upon imposture, reared in time-serving, cemented by sordid interest,
 
 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM. 195 
 
 and crowned with spite, and insolence, and pride to have said that 
 the Durham clergy disgraced such a hierarchy, would have been not 
 only gross inconsistency, hut stark nonsense. He must rather have 
 said that they were worthy members of a base and grovelling estab- 
 lishment that the church was as bad as its ministers and that it 
 was hard to say whether they more fouled it or were defiled by it. 
 But he has said nothing that can bring into jeopardy or discredit an 
 institution which every one wishes to keep pure, and which has 
 nothing to dread so much as the follies and crimes of its supporters. 
 Gentlemen, you have to-day a great task committed to your hands. 
 This is not the age the spirit of the times is not such as to make it 
 safe, either for the country or for the government, or for the church 
 itself, to veil its mysteries iti secrecy; to plant in the porch of the 
 temple a prosecutor brandishing his flaming sword, the process of the 
 law, to prevent the prying eyes of mankind from wandering over the 
 structure. These are times when men ivill inquire, and the day most 
 fatal to the Established Church, the blackest that ever dawned upon 
 its ministers, will be that which consigns this defendant, for these 
 remarks, to the horrors of a gaol, which its false friends, the chosen 
 objects of such lavish favor, have far more richly deserved. I agree 
 with my learned friend, that the Church of England has nothing to 
 dread from external violence. Built upon a rock, and lifting its head 
 towards another world, it aspires to an imperishable existence, and 
 defies any force that may rage from without. But let it beware of 
 the corruption engendered within and beneath its massive walls; and 
 let all its well-wishers all who, whether for religious or political 
 interests, desire its lasting stability beware how they give encourage- 
 ment, by giving shelter, to the vermin bred in that corruption, who 
 "stink and sting" against the hand that would brush the roltenness 
 away. JMy learned friend has sympathised with the priesthood, and 
 innocently enough lamented that they possess not the power of defend- 
 ing themselves through the public press. Let him be consoled; they 
 are not so very defenceless they are not so entirely destitute of the aid 
 of the press as through him they have represented themselves to be. 
 They have largely used that press (I wish I could say " as not abusing 
 it,") and against some persons very near me I mean especially against 
 the defendant, whom they have scurrilously and foully libelled through 
 that great vehicle of public instruction, over which, for the first time, 
 among the other novelties of the day, I now hear they have control. 
 Not that they wound deeply or injure much; but that is no fault of 
 theirs without hurting, they give trouble and discomfort. The insect 
 brought into life by corruption, and nestled in filth, though its flight be 
 lowly and its sting puny, can swarm and buzz, and irritate the skin and 
 offend the nostril, and altogether give nearly as much annoyance as 
 the wasp, whose nobler nature it aspires to emulate. These reverend 
 slanderers these pious backbiters devoid of force to wield the 
 sword, snatch the dagger, and destitute of wit to point or to barb it, 
 and make it rankle in the wound, steep it in venom to make it fester 
 in the scratch. The much venerated personages whose harmless and
 
 196 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM. 
 
 unprotected state is now deplored, have been the wholesale dealers in 
 calumny, as well as largest consumers of the base article the especial 
 promoters of that vile traffic, of late the disgrace of the country 
 both furnishing a constant demand for the slanders by which the press 
 is polluted, and prostituting themselves to pander for the appetites of 
 others; and now they come to demand protection from retaliation, 
 and shelter from just exposure; and to screen themselves, would have 
 you prohibit all scrutiny of the abuses by which they exist, and the 
 mal-practices by which they disgrace their calling. After abusing 
 and well-nigh dismantling, for their own despicable purposes, the 
 great engine of instruction, they would have you annihilate all that 
 they have left of it, to secure their escape. They have the incredible 
 assurance to expect that an English jury will conspire with them in 
 this wicked design. They expect in vain! If all existing institutions 
 and all public functionaries must henceforth be sacred from question 
 among the people; if, at length the free press of this country, and 
 with it the freedom itself, is to be destroyed at least let not the heavy 
 blow fall from your hands. Leave it to some profligate tyrant; leave 
 it to a mercenary and effeminate Parliament a hireling army, de- 
 graded by the lash, and the readier instrument for enslaving its country; 
 leave it to a pampered House of Lords a venal House of Commons 
 some vulgar minion, servant-of-all-work to an insolent court some 
 unprincipled soldier, unknown, thank God! in our times, combining 
 the talents of a usurper with the fame of a captain; leave to such 
 desperate hands, and such fit tools, so horrid a work! But you, an 
 English jury, parent of the press, yet supported by it, and doomed to 
 perish the instant its health and strength are gone lift not you against 
 it an unnatural hand. Prove to us that our rights are safe in your 
 keeping; but maintain, above all things, the stability of our institu- 
 tions, by well-guarding their corner stone. Defend the church from 
 her worst enemies, who, to hide their own misdeeds, would veil her 
 solid foundations in darkness; and proclaim to them by your verdict 
 of acquittal, that henceforward, as heretofore, all the recesses of the 
 sanctuary must be visited by the continual light of day, and by that 
 light its abuses be explored! 
 
 [After the learned Judge had summed up to the Jury, they retired, 
 and remained inclosed for above five hours. They then returned the 
 following special verdict, viz.: " Guilty of so much of the matter in 
 the first count as charges a libel upon the Clergy residing in and near 
 the City of Durham, and the suburbs thereof, and as to the rest of 
 the first count, and the other counts of the Information, Not Guilty."]
 
 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OP DURHAM. 197 
 
 IN MICHAELMAS TERM FOLLOWING. 
 Nov. 1S22. 
 
 MR. SCARLETT moved for judgment on this defendant, who was 
 found guilty at the last assizes for the County of Durham, on a Crmi- 
 nal Information granted by this court, for a libel. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE. Mr. Brougham moves in arrest of 
 judgment? 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. Yes, my lord, and also for a new trial. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE. Then the defendant is, I presume, in 
 court? 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. He has been here, my lord; but we did not in 
 the least expect the case to come on to-day, and 1 believe he is 
 gone. I can, at least, move in arrest of judgment, and I dare say he 
 will be here before I find it necessary to state my grounds for a new 
 trial. 
 
 MR. SCARLETT. I know that the defendant is in town, and has 
 been here this morning. As far, therefore, as I am concerned I beg to 
 waive any objection to Mr. Brougham's proceeding. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE. Then Mr. Brougham may proceed. 
 You move first for a new trial? 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. No, first in arrest of judgment ; and then I 
 shall show my grounds for thinking that a new trial ought to be 
 granted. 
 
 MR. JUSTICE BEST then read Mr. Baron Wood's report of the trial. 
 The learned Judge had stated the verdict to be " Guilty on the second 
 coi nt of the Information." 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM said he should first draw the attention of the court 
 to the record, and show that it was so defective that no judgment could 
 be pronounced upon it. This would appear on more particularly com- 
 paring the verdict with the Information. 
 
 MR. JUSTICE BAYLEY. The verdict is entered upon the second 
 count of the Information. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. No, my lord; it is on the first count, and is in these 
 words "Guilty of a libel on the Clergy residing in and near the City 
 of Durham, and the suburbs thereof." 
 
 MR. SCARLETT. No, it is on the learned Judge's notes. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM begged to refer to the record. 
 
 MR. JUSTICE BAYLEY accordingly looked at the record. The 
 endorsement on the postea corresponded with the learned Judge's 
 notes, but the record itself was in these words " And the jurors 
 aforesaid say that he, the said defendant, is guilty of so much of the 
 first count as charges a libel on the Clergy residing in and near the 
 City of Durham, and the suburbs thereof and as to the rest of the 
 first count and the other counts of the Information, he is not guilty." 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM proceeded. He would now draw the attention of
 
 198 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM. 
 
 the court to the first count in the Information, the only one to which 
 he should have occasion to revert, as the defendant was acquitted on 
 all the others. This count charged him with " printing and publishing 
 a libel, of and concerning the United Church of England and Ireland, 
 and of and concerning the Clergy of that Church, and the Clergy 
 residing in and near the City of Durham and the suburbs thereof;" not 
 repeating the words " of and concerning," before the words " the 
 Clergy residing in and near the City of Durham." 
 
 MR. SCARLETT asserted, that the words "of and concerning" were 
 in his copy of Information. 
 
 MR. JUSTICE BAYLEY read the passage from the record, which proved 
 that Mr. Brougham was correct. 
 
 MK. SCARLETT. It was so in my copy, I was equally confident with 
 you. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. Yes; but there was this difference you were 
 confident and wrong; I was confident and right. The difference was 
 merely between a well-founded observation, and one that had no 
 foundation at all. I only mention this to prevent any further inter- 
 ruptions, of which I have had two already. The learned Counsel 
 then proceeded to take two objections to the record; first, that the 
 count charged an offence different from that which the jury had found; 
 and, second, that the offence of which the jury had found the defen- 
 dant guilty, supposing it to be the same with that stated, was in itself 
 too vague and uncertain to be made the foundation of any judgment. 
 And first he would contend that the Information charged one offence, 
 and the jury had found another. The count set forth the libel as " of 
 and concerning the United Church of England and Ireland, and of 
 and concerning the Clergy of that church, and the Clergy residing in 
 the City of Durham and the suburbs thereof;" and the jury had found 
 that there was no libel on the United Church or the Clergy thereof, 
 but on the Clergy of Durham. Now he would contend that, even if 
 the words "of and concerning" had been repeated, and even if the 
 Clergy of Durham were a body distinct from the body of the United 
 Church thus putting the case far stronger than it was for the prosecu- 
 tion that the description was one entire description, and could not 
 be severed. Not only was there no separate count for a libel on the 
 Clergy of Durham (the introduction of which would have been the 
 easiest thing in the world) but there was not even in this count any 
 undivided averment of a libel on them. Suppose a libel were charged 
 "of and concerning A and B;" and suppose A and B were distinct 
 persons, entirely unconnected with each other, and the jury found 
 that the libel was concerning "A" only, they would find an offence 
 different from that of which they were charged to inquire. There 
 was a case not nearly so strong as this, that of " Lewis and Walter," 
 which had been argued, but which the court had not yet decided, 
 where a similar objection was taken, and where the leaning of some, 
 if not all the judges, seemed strongly in favor of the objection. There 
 the defendant was charged with a libel "of and concerning the plain- 
 tiff, and of and concerning him as an attorney;" at the trial there
 
 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OP DURHAM. 199 
 
 was no proof of his professional character, and the Lord Chief Justice 
 accordingly nonsuited the plaintiff, because, though the publication 
 would be a libel on him in his personal character, he held the plaintiff 
 bound by his averment, and that it was one description of one wrong. 
 The case cited in argument for the plaintiff of Dickens v. Cogswell," 
 was clearly inapplicable; for there the averment " of and concerning 
 the plaintiff as an appraiser and carpenter" was clearly partible: 
 and so the court seemed to regard it. But the present case was far 
 stronger than "Lewis v. Walter;" because here, instead of referring 
 to two distinct characters of the same person, or two distinct indi- 
 viduals like " A and B," the Clergy of Durham (if they meant any 
 person at all) were included in the previous description, " the Clergy 
 of the United Church." It was as if the charge had been " of and 
 concerning a certain community, and of and concerning a certain 
 person as a member of that community ;" in which case the 
 libel, if any thing would be a libel on the community, as the mem- 
 ber qua member, could not be severed from it. But here the de- 
 fendant was actually acquitted of libelling the clergy in general; 
 and yet found guilty of libelling a body who only had existence as a 
 part of this clergy; and this without any distinct allegation or any 
 divisable averment. Here he might advert to the uncertainty of 
 the description, which he should make a substantive objection, as 
 strengthening that which he was now urging; for even this part of 
 the church at best to be so taken was so vaguely described, as when 
 severed from the rest, to mean nothing. If the description of the 
 Clergy of Durham was explained as referring to some part of the 
 " United Church," then the acquittal applied to the larger included 
 the less; if it was taken independently, then it referred to no recog- 
 nised body, and had no meaning at all. This brought him to the 
 second objection that the offence charged was altogether uncertain. 
 First, there was nothing to define the exact meaning of the word 
 "Clergy" nothing whatever to limit it to the ministers of the Estab- 
 lished Church. 
 
 Mn. JUSTICE BEST. Arc Dissenters ever called clergy? 
 
 MB. BBOUGHAM replied that they were so called in many acts of 
 Parliament; among others, in the 4Sth of George III, which in its 
 title purported to be " An Act concerning the Clergy of Scotland." 
 But if the dissenting preachers were not legally denominated Clergy, 
 and he contended that they were, the Catholic priests had, unques- 
 tionably, a right to the title; they were so treated in the acts of Henry 
 VIII; and they had only to abjure to become at once in full orders, 
 and to receive the highest dignities of the church. At this very time 
 there was a bishop who had never taken orders in the Protestant 
 Church, but had merely passed from (he Romish Church into ours. 
 The term "Clergy," therefore, was altogether vague without further 
 explanation; for it was impossible to import that part of the descrip- 
 tion of which the defendant had been acquitted, into the other part of 
 which he had been found guilty; on the contrary, the opposite find- 
 ing seemed to negative all connection between them. Next, what
 
 200 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM. 
 
 was meant by the term " near?" Was it one, or two, or ten, or 
 twenty miles? Each man would reply according to his own idea of 
 nearness, and perhaps no two persons would agree as to the limits 
 within which the libelled Clergy resided. The term "suburbs," was 
 again ambiguous; so that here was a further latitude of proximity 
 almost running into distance. Here, then, the word "Clergy" was 
 ambiguous; the class of Clergy was ambiguous; and if the court 
 could find no meaning in what the jury had found, they would not 
 look for it in what they had negatived. And now, leaving these 
 points, he would contend that even supposing the clergy of the Esta- 
 blished Church in the city of Durham to be intended, these did not 
 form a body whom the court meant to protect when they granted the 
 rule. At the time when the rule was argued, the publication was 
 called "a libel on the Church of England;" Mr. Scarlett demanded 
 protection for that church; the Lord Chief Justice three times inter- 
 rupted the argument when proceeding, on the ground that the clergy 
 of Durham were the applicants, by observing, "this is a libel on the 
 Church of England;" and when he (Mr. Brougham) contended that 
 it applied only to the clergy of Durham, he was met by the same 
 answer. Now, he did not believe that the court ever would have 
 granted the rule had it been applied for in the terms of the verdict, 
 " for a libel on the clergy residing in and near the city of Durham and 
 the suburbs thereof," for whenever the court had thus interfered, it 
 was either on behalf of some individual, or some definite body of 
 men recognised by the law. Every case cited by Mr. Scarlett on that 
 occasion was consistent with this principle. The King v. the Justices 
 of Staffordshire was entirely of this nature; for where could be found 
 a more definite body of men than those in the commission of the peace 
 for a particular county? In the case where application was made 
 against certain justices of Middlesex sitting in Litchfield-street, the 
 motion was refused until affidavits were produced showing what par- 
 ticular magistrate sat there, and then the rule was granted. In " the 
 King v. Jerome," which was a libel on the directors of the East India 
 Company, the Information was granted, because the directors were a 
 distinct body, chartered by Act of Parliament, and not like the coun- 
 sel at a particular bar, or a particular circuit. The case of " the King 
 v. Orme and Nutt," reported in 1 Lord Raymond, 486, was also more 
 fully reported as to this particular point in 3d Salkeld, 224. 
 
 MR. JUSTICE BAYLEY. Third Salkeld is a very questionable autho- 
 rity; it is not like the first and second volumes of those reports. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM said he was aware of this, and he would not have 
 quoted it had it differed from the report in Lord Raymond; but it 
 was consistent with it, and only carried the statement a little further. 
 In Lord Raymond it appeared that the libel was on "certain ladies of 
 London," which was removed by certiorari, because the Recorder 
 stated that he thought himself affected by it, and in Salkeld it was laid 
 down that " where a writing inveighs against mankind in general, or 
 against a particular order of men as for instance men of the gown 
 it is no libel; but it must descend to particulars and individuals to
 
 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM. 201 
 
 make it a libel." In Lord Raymond it appeared that more specific 
 averments to point out the individuals designed were necessary, and 
 probably these were supplied. 
 
 MR. JUSTICE BAYLEY. Yes: because you cannot say a writing is 
 false and scandalous unless you know to whom it applies. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM replied that this was exactly his argument. He 
 then came to the "King v. Osborne," which had been cited by Mr. 
 Swanston, a reporter to whose industry and research the profession 
 were greatly indebted, and who had searched the MSS. in Lincoln's 
 Inn Library for his materials, in the notes to the case for Jhe Bedford 
 charity, which was argued in Chancery in ISIS, and where the legal 
 relation of the Jews came chiefly in question. This was a libel 
 charging that certain Jews who had lately arrived from Portugal and 
 lived near Broad-street, had murdered a woman and her child, incon- 
 sequence of which numbers of persons were assaulted, and terrible 
 riots were excited. It was one of those charges on bodies of men of 
 systematic murder which were frequently made in dark times, to 
 inflame the passions of their bigoted neighbors, and which called im- 
 periously for the interference of courts of justice. In that case the 
 judge seemed to consider the Information as improper for a libel; but 
 regarded it as good for a great misdemeanor, which it was abso- 
 lutely necessary to repress. He had now finished his argument in 
 arrest of judgment, and hoped that he had shown enough to induce 
 the court to grant a rule to show cause. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE intimated that it would be more conve- 
 nient to hear the whole case now. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM said he would proceed very shortly to state his 
 grounds for a new trial; and he thought, that even if the court should 
 not see in the variance between the Information and the verdict, suffi- 
 cient reason for arresting the judgment, they would suffer the argu- 
 ment strongly to incline them to a new trial. If they saw that they 
 had granted the Information for one offence, and the defendant had 
 been found guilty of another if he had actually been acquitted of 
 that which was urged before them, and convicted on a ground hardly, 
 if at all, in the contemplation of either side they would feel disposed 
 to submit the case to another jury. The defendant was placed in a 
 most unfortunate situation by the course of proceedings; for had the 
 rule been moved for on the ground upon which he was found guilty 
 had it been specifically applied for solely on behalf of the Durham 
 Clergy, the court would never have waived the salutary practice of 
 compelling each prosecutor to show, by his oath, that he came into 
 court with clean hands. Then the defendant would have had the 
 opportunity of showing the offences of which each individual had 
 been guilty, and of proving by affidavit the truth of every tittle of his 
 charges. At the trial, the counsel for Mr. Williams were entirely 
 misled by the notice of the record, and by the speech of the prosecu- 
 tor's counsel. The case (as the learned judge might testify) proceeded 
 entirely on the question whether the publication was a libel on the 
 Church of England? and to this point all his (Mr. Brougham's) rea-
 
 202 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OP DURHAM. 
 
 soning was directed. Had he supposed that his client was called on 
 to answer for a libel on the Durham Clergy, he would not have ex- 
 pended all his strength in showing that it was not a libel on the Estab- 
 lished Church. He should not have made quotation after quotation 
 from the works of pious men to show how that church had been cha- 
 racterised; but he should have bent all his strength to show that the 
 paragraph contained no libel on the clergy in and near Durham. On 
 that point he had not yet been heard; of that on which he had been 
 heard the defendant was acquitted; of that on which he had not been 
 heard, he was found guilty. Had he been duly apprised that this was 
 the pith of the Information, and applied himself to that point, the jury 
 might have arrived at a different conclusion. His next ground for a 
 new trial was, that the verdict was against evidence, because the court 
 charged the defendant " with printing and publishing," and the wit- 
 nesses for the prosecution expressly proved that Mr. Williams was 
 not the printer. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE asked if the newspaper did not purport 
 to be printed by Mr. Williams? 
 
 MR. SCARLETT said he had not the particular paper proved; but he 
 had another paper which purported to be printed and published by 
 and for the defendant. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE observed, that at all events, the objection 
 might be obviated by applying to the learned judge, for leave to 
 amend the verdict by entering it on another count for publishing only. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM said, he did not rely on this point, though he 
 thought it right to mention it. His next ground was the misdirection 
 of the learned judge. And first, Mr. Baron Wood in his charge told 
 the jury, "The Court of King's Bench have been of opinion that this 
 is a libef, and a fit subject for prosecution." Now the first part of 
 this direction was incorrect; The court had not given opinion that it 
 was a libel, but had merely given opinion that it was a fit subject for 
 a jury to consider whether it was or was not a libel. But if the jury 
 supposed that the case was merely sent to them to execute the opinion 
 of the court 
 
 MR. JUSTICE BAYLEY. He did not tell them that, I suppose? 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. No; but they might infer it. 
 
 MR. JUSTICE BAYLEY. Did he not tell them what his own opinion 
 was? 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. Yes; and that is another ground for a new trial. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE. Then almost every judge who has 
 tried a case of libel since the Act passed has been in error; for it has 
 been the uniform practice for the judge to state his opinion, leaving 
 the jury to exercise their own judgment. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. Undoubtedly; but he ought not to state it as the 
 opinion of the court, who have only said that it is a fit subject for 
 inquiry. 
 
 MR. JUSTICE BEST. Is it more than saying "the Grand Jury have 
 found a bill?" 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM submitted that it was very different; it was almost
 
 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM. 203 
 
 overwhelming the minds of the jury, to toll them in effect that if they 
 found the publication not a libel, they differed from the highest crimi- 
 nal court in the kingdom. His lordship also said, "I am required by 
 law to give you my opinion." Here again he was incorrect; he was 
 not required, but only authorised to give his opinion, as in other cases; 
 and Lord Ellenborongh once, in a similar case, having inadvertently 
 used the word " required," corrected himself, and substituted " not 
 required, but it is expected of me." 
 
 Mu. JUSTICE BAYLEY. Do you really think you can prevail on 
 the court to grant you a new trial, because a judge has used the 
 word " required" instead of "authorised?" lie does not say, I pre- 
 sume, that he is dissatisfied with having said so? 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. No; the report is silent on that subject; he says 
 nothing either way. The learned judge also broadly stated " Every 
 publication tending to bring an establishment of this country into 
 hatred or contempt is a libel." This was much too wide; it might be 
 in the highest degree praiseworthy to bring an establishment into hatred 
 and contempt to show that its abuses must be corrected, or even that 
 it must be done away; the propriety or impropriety of such attempt 
 would depend on the manner in which it was pursued. There were 
 many excellent men who had exerted all their powers to abolish some 
 of our establishments; and who had passed lives of honorable toil for 
 this purpose without reproach. That which at one time was useful, 
 might become noxious at another: and was it not then to be brought 
 into hatred and contempt in order to its removal? The Smallpox 
 Hospital, for example, was of the highest utility when it was founded; 
 but after the vaccine inoculation was discovered, it became pernicious; 
 and Lord Ellenborough intimated that it might be prosecuted as a 
 pest-house, unless its baneful effects were prevented; yet here was an 
 establishment, chartered by Act of Parliament, and at one period 
 among the noblest of our charities. There were other establishments 
 which it might be the duty of all good men to expose. For instance, 
 the office of third Secretary of State. Was it a crime to show that 
 this establishment was useless to cover it with ridicule to show 
 that it was despicable and abominable in the existing state of the 
 country? 
 
 The LOUD CHIEF JUSTICE. I am not prepared to say that this may 
 be done by publication. There is a place where such arguments may 
 be used with freedom. At the same time I do not say that an argu- 
 mentative discussion of the establishment designed to show its inutilily 
 would be a libel. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. In that I entirely agree; the whole distinction 
 lies in the manner, and this distinction the learned judge never sub- 
 mitted to the jury. 
 
 MR. JUSTICE BEST. Yes; because he says any publication tending 
 to bring an establishment into " contempt," that cannot be by fair 
 discussion. 
 
 Mu. BROUGHAM. yes, my lord. To bring that which is per- 
 nicious into contempt is the object of all discussion, and even ridicule
 
 204 LIBEL ON THE CLERGY OF DURHAM. 
 
 is often a fair weapon. I am sure we should not be now sitting 
 under a reformed church that " United Church" of which the Infor- 
 mation speaks would never have existed but for the use of this 
 weapon against popery. These (continued Mr. Brougham) were 
 his grounds for asking a new trial, in case the judgment should not 
 be arrested; but he again submitted, on the two points which he first 
 brought to the consideration of the court, that the record was so 
 inconsistent with the finding, and so imperfect in itself, that no judg- 
 ment could be founded upon it. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE. You do not mean to say that the 
 learned Judge did not leave the questions at last to the jury? 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. Certainly not, my lord. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE consulted with the other judges for a 
 few minutes, and then said, " You may take a Rule to show cause 
 why the judgment should not be arrested; but we all think that you 
 have laid no ground before us for a new trial. The points in arrest 
 of judgment are those on which you yourself chiefly rested." 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM. I relied on them chiefly, without doubt. 
 
 MR. SCARLETT. My learned friend would rather have the verdict 
 he has at present, than any that a new trial would give him. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE. Will you consent to a new trial, then, 
 Mr. Scarlett? 
 
 MR. SCARLETT said, that as the defendant was in town, it would 
 be desirable to know whether the case could come on this term. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE replied, that it was quite impossible that 
 it could come on during the present term. 
 
 MR. BROUGHAM took his Rule to show cause why the judgment 
 should not be arrested.
 
 DISSERTATION 
 
 LAW OF LIBEL AND SLANDER. 
 
 THE unsatisfactory state of our Libel Law in almost every par- 
 ticular, is brought very strongly into view by the proceedings in the 
 Durham case; and it may not be unprofitable to the great cause of 
 Law Reform, and above all, to the important interests of the liberty 
 of the press, if we take a short view of the objects towards which 
 that law ought to be directed the degree and the direction in which 
 it falls short of them and the remedies by which it might be better 
 enabled to attain them. 
 
 1. The true and legitimate objects of the Law of Libel are, to 
 secure the public peace against inflammatory and seditious publica- 
 tions, and to protect private character from slander; without so far 
 hampering the discussion of men's measures and of their public cha- 
 racters as to injure the great interests of liberty and good government, 
 or so far removing the salutary control of public opinion from noto- 
 rious private vices, as to bestow impunity upon ostentatious im- 
 morality. These objects never can be accomplished as regards public 
 libels unless there are certain protections thrown round those who 
 discuss public questions and public characters, and certain difficulties 
 thrown in the way of State prosecutions. Nor can it be accom- 
 plished as regards private slander, unless the defence of the injured 
 character is made so easy, safe, and effectual, that the legal proceed- 
 ing shall not be either loaded with ruinous expense, nor shall imply 
 a consciousness of guilt, nor shall aggravate rather than remove the 
 mischief done. 
 
 2. In all these particulars, however, the law of this country is sin- 
 gularly defective. The charge brought by the writer against the 
 government, or against the public character of any functionary of 
 the state, may be ever so true, and ever so fit or even necessary to be 
 stated plainly, strongly, and even vehemently, and yet the statement 
 may be as severely punished as if it were from beginning to end 
 false. A minister may have taken a bribe to betray his trust; he 
 may, to gratify his private revenge, have exposed a worthy colleague 
 to destruction; he may, to get rid of a rival in the cabinet, or in the se- 
 nate, or in the boudoir, have prostituted the patronage of his office and 
 
 VOL. i. 18
 
 206 DISSERTATION ON THE LAW OF LIBEL AND SLANDER. 
 
 given an embassy or a foreign command to the least worthy candidate; 
 he may have bartered crown patronage for parliamentary support with- 
 out decency and without shame. The statement of this, with or 
 without comment, is as severely punishable by our law, as if the 
 whole had been the fabrication of a wicked and spiteful imagination. 
 Upon the trial, no evidence can be given of the truth; in addressing 
 the jury, the judge must declare that true or false the publication is 
 alike criminal; even after the conviction, nothing respecting the truth 
 can be urged in mitigation of punishment, as if the additional cir- 
 cumstance of having falsely charged those offences made the crime 
 of publishing the charge no blacker. Again, the whole costs of the 
 defence fall upon the party although he is acquitted, and ought never 
 to have been tried. The government has the power of putting any 
 writer or printer on his trial without a tittle of evidence against him, 
 even without his ever having published any thing at all; and he may 
 be prosecuted over and over again until the expense of his defence 
 have worked his entire ruin. Mr. Perry and Mr. Lambert were 
 punished for saying that George Ill's successor, coming after his 
 reign, would have a fine opportunity of gaining popularity by the 
 contrast which he had it in his power to display wuh the policy of 
 the last half century. To call this libellous was absurd enough; but 
 if neither Mr. Perry had been the proprietor, nor Mr. Lambert the 
 publisher of the Morning Chronicle, or indeed of any paper at all, 
 they would have equally been exposed to prosecution, and equally 
 had to pay 100/. or ISO/, in defending themselves. Further, a prose- 
 cution may be instituted against a publication which no twelve 
 tradesmen, or farmers, or yeomen, in any district can be found to 
 pronounce libellous; and the crown may have a jury of a higher 
 rank in society, whose feelings are more tender on the subject, and 
 whose leanings are all to the side of power, and all against the free 
 discussion of the press. 
 
 As regards private libels, the case is fully worse. The party slan- 
 dered may bring an action, but if the words are true, he can recover 
 no damages, and yet their truth may be no defence. As, for example, 
 if a woman early in life had made a slip, of which repenting she had 
 for forty years after led a blameless life, and become the respected 
 mother of a family the truth here is rather an aggravation than an 
 extenuation of the offence of disclosing this early accident for the sake 
 of revenge, possibly because her virtue had now held out against the 
 attempts of some seducer; yet this circumstance of the truth is a com- 
 plete bar to the action. Then, in prosecuting, there is the difficulty 
 of an opposite kind; for here the truth is wholly immaterial, and 
 therefore whoever prosecutes, at least by indictment, appears to admit 
 the truth of the charge in the libel. If the prosecution is by criminal 
 information, the prosecutor's oath must deny the charge but the de- 
 fendant can give no evidence of the truth at the trial, however easily 
 he could prove it, and in showing cause against the rule he can obtain 
 none but voluntary affidavits: so that this proceeding is a very imper- 
 fect vindication of character; as all the charges may be true and capa-
 
 DISSERTATION ON THE LAW OF LIBEL AND SLANDER. 207 
 
 ble of proof, and yet the evidence is excluded. There remains, in- 
 deed, the action for damages. But whoever lias been engaged in any 
 such proceedings, either as a party bringing the suit, or as advising 
 and managing it, is well aware how unsatisfactory a remedy it affords. 
 There is nothing upon which greater mistakes are committed; for men 
 are wont to say that it effectually vindicates the plaintiff's reputation 
 by defying the calumniator to prove his charge. But it in truth only 
 shows that the charge cannot be proved, while it may yet be quite 
 true, though the evidence of it rests with the guilty party, or between 
 the guilty parties if there be more than one. Suppose, for instance, 
 an imputation, one of the most frequent of all, against a female of 
 having violated her chastity, or against a man of having seduced a 
 female; the charge may be quite true, and yet no one but the parties 
 may be able to prove it; nay, there may be abundance of proof, but 
 they only may know flow to get at it; or again, the witnesses may 
 be so entirely under their control, that the defendant having no means 
 of previously examining them, never could bring them into court in 
 the dark as to their testimony, and consequently never could be advised 
 in the dark to plead a justification. The like may be said of almost 
 all acts of official delinquency, which can only be known in their 
 details to the actors and their accomplices or dependants. How could 
 any defendant, after denouncing these upon strong moral evidence, or 
 at least on very grave suspicion, venture to plead any thing like a jus- 
 tification, when he must be wholly unable to marshal his evidence, or 
 even to ascertain the particulars of the transaction? Then suppose 
 individual parties charged in a libel with the private delinquency, or 
 men in office with the malversation, their bringing an action really 
 proves nothing as to their innocence it only proves that the offence 
 may have been committed, or it may not; but that the evidence of it 
 is inaccessible, lying within the breast of the guilty parties, or their 
 accomplices, or their dependants. Now it is of the nature of all de- 
 linquency, public or private, to shun the light; consequently, there are 
 very few things of which any one can be accused, that do not come 
 within the description of the cases from which the examples now 
 given to illustrate the argument have been chosen. Hence it is that 
 the plea of justification is so seldom pleaded; but hence it also is, as 
 professional men know, men who do not merely look to the theory of 
 our jurisprudence, but are well conversant in the practice of the law, 
 that the remedy for injuries to reputation, by way of action, is so un- 
 satisfactory, as to be rarely recommended to those who have suffered 
 the injury. Even in the intercourse of common life, there are many 
 things, many breaches of decorum and even of morality, \vhi<-li no 
 one who lives in society has the least doubt of, atid which neverthe- 
 less every one feels to be incapable of proof. Every now and then 
 some one charged, and known to be most justly charged, with those 
 offences, has the courage to bring an action, which all the world 
 knows can have but one result. The defendant cannot justify; the 
 verdict is a matter of course, the inference drawn from it universally 
 by those who know nothing of the parties or the matter, and whoso
 
 208 DISSERTATION ON THE LAW OF LIBEL AND SLANDER. 
 
 good opinion is not worth having, is, that the charge is groundless, 
 and has been courageously met; the inference equally universally 
 drawn by all who know the parties, all whose opinion forms their 
 reputation, is, that they are guilty, and have not shown their inno- 
 cence, hut displayed a safe and easy effrontery by the proceedings. 
 
 To these considerations, which tend so fully to discredit the remedy 
 by action, is to be added this other that the defendant n>ay plead a 
 justification, which does not cover the whole matter in the libel or in 
 the declaration, or he may plead one which he can only partially 
 prove. Then the injured, that is the slandered party, is worse off 
 than ever; for the part not justified or not proved may be the worst 
 of the whole, and it may be utterly false, and yet, be the event of the 
 trial what it may, and the verdict ever so secure, the party is sure to 
 be believed guilty of the whole matter. 
 
 Nay, even if no mischance befalls him in the suit, and he recovers 
 damages, every one knows how very rarely a jury estimates the 
 injury to reputation and to feelings otherwise than by the most cold 
 and imperfect rules with what a scanty measure the damages are 
 stingily meted out. In different places the standard varies; in the 
 provinces, where, however, the slander has always a greater effect, 
 the damages awarded, even in very grave cases, are ridiculously 
 small; even in London they are seldom considerable, unless some 
 unexpected accident occurs to inflame them. Now, however fre- 
 quent the topic may be, that the action is not brought for gain, and that 
 the damages are an object of contempt with the plaintiff, yet every 
 one knows that they are the very reverse of being undervalued, and 
 most justly; for whatever the plaintiff's counsel may say, he never 
 fails to urge the amount of damages as not merely the measure of his 
 client's injury, but the value of his reputation; and if a few pounds 
 or shillings only be given, the defendant leaves the court with the 
 cry, in which all the public joins, that his adversary's character is 
 worth no more; nay, for years the slandered party will hear the value 
 at which a jury has assessed his character, quoted maliciously against 
 him, as often as he or his connections happen to be involved in any 
 personal altercation. 
 
 So numerous and so serious being the difficulties of an action, that 
 the remedy by information is very generally preferred; for it is prompt, 
 being accessible immediately, inasmuch as the affidavit by which the 
 slandered party denies the truth of the imputation cast on him, is the 
 very first step of the proceeding; and that affidavit, to which he may 
 add the oaths of others, in case the matter lies within their knowledge 
 as well as his own, affords a certain degree of proof that the accusa- 
 tions are unfounded. When this, however, is said, all is said that 
 can be urged in favor of this proceeding; for the witnesses swear 
 without any cross-examination; they swear unseen by the court; and 
 they may select only those things which they can safely deny, leaving 
 much untouched and more unexplained. The defence of an action 
 is, as we have seen, in the great majority of instances, a mere name; 
 nevertheless, in some cases the proof may be forthcoming, if the de-
 
 DISSERTATION ON THE LAW OF LIBEL AND SLANDER. 209 
 
 fendant can be aided by the process of the court to compel witnesses; 
 and in others, witnesses who refuse to volunteer their testimony by 
 swearing an affidavit, which every one knows they cannot be compelled 
 to make, would have no objection to communicate privately with the 
 party, so that he might safely examine them, when he seemed to 
 force them into the witness-box by a subpoena. It follows that no 
 vindication of character can be competent which does not unite the 
 merits of the two proceedings, by criminal information and by action 
 enabling the party, and his accomplices or dependants to swear; 
 defying the defendant to the proof; and above all, exposing the plain- 
 tiff's witnesses, if he have any, to cross-examination. 
 
 An additional reason exists for preferring the criminal proceeding, 
 or at least for making punishment a part of the result. If damages 
 only are the object, the slanderer may conceal himself, and pay some 
 tool, some man of straw, whom he sets up to publish his calumnies, 
 and engages to save harmless from all costs and charges. It is 
 always Tar more difficult to find a person who will go to prison for 
 his employer. Now, one great object of the Libel Law should be to 
 bring forward the real offender; this is indeed distinctly included in 
 and implied by the statement made in the outset of this discourse, as 
 to the proper aim and end of that law. 
 
 The present frame of our jurisprudence in this particular is singu- 
 larly defective. A slanderer may invent a false tale respecting some 
 transaction to some part of which he was a party or a witness, and 
 may get a publisher to disseminate it widely. The action being 
 brought against the latter, the publisher, he who knows nothing at 
 all of the matter, is nowise injured by being an incompetent witness; 
 but he produces the real party, the writer of the lie, to swear for him; 
 and it is hardly possible to defeat this conspiracy the month of the 
 other party, the plaintiff, who has been slandered, being of course 
 closed. The two parlies thus contend upon most unfair terms; and 
 the right of proving the truth being unrestricted, the propagator of 
 the falsehood has the same privilege of pleading a justification with 
 the inventor of it; the real party to the suit appears, not as defendant, 
 but as witness; and of the two formal parties, neither of whom can be 
 heard, one only is real, and he has the greatest interest in being heard, 
 whilst the other is wholly indifferent whether he be heard or not, 
 having nothing to communicate. 
 
 There remains one great defect in our Libel Law, which, though 
 not confined to this branch of criminal jurisprudence, is nevertheless 
 of more serious injury here than elsewhere that strange anomaly 
 by which the jurisprudence of England is distinguished, and very 
 discreditably, from that of every other country the leaving it to 
 private individuals to institute prosecutions for the punishment of 
 crimes. Whether any offence, however grave, shall be severely 
 punished or altogether escape with impunity, depends upon the feel- 
 ings, or the caprice, or the indolence, or the activity, or the disinte- 
 restedness, or the sordid feelings, of unknown and irresponsible indi- 
 viduals. The contrast is astonishing between the severity of the 
 
 18*
 
 210 DISSERTATION ON THE LAW OP LIBEL AND SLANDER. 
 
 penalties denounced against offences, and the utter relaxation of the 
 law for enforcing these penal sanctions. After providing by a series 
 of the most rigorous enactments the most sanguinary punishments, 
 the sword of justice drops from the lawyer's hand, and not a single 
 precaution is taken to prevent the criminal's escape and secure the 
 enforcement of any one of those provisions. Within a few months 
 of each other, two capital crimes were committed a murder in the 
 face of day, (which might possibly have been found to be only an 
 aggravated manslaughter,) by one patrician upon another and an 
 extensive forgery by a wealthy tradesman. In both cases parties 
 were bound over to prosecute, as it is most inaccurately called, in 
 reality to give evidence as witnesses: in both they forfeited their 
 recognisances; and in both the culprits escaped. 
 
 The want of a public prosecutor is peculiarly felt in prosecutions 
 for libel. The publication most offensive to decorum, most injurious 
 to the peace of society, will never be visited with punishment, as long 
 as it is left with private parties to institute criminal proceedings. 
 Women of delicate feelings, men of weak nerves, persons who because 
 of their invincible repugnance to adopt proceedings of a public kind 
 for the punishment of those that have violated the privacy of domes- 
 tic life, are the more fit objects for the law's protection, and the less 
 likely to have committed the things laid to their charge, are surely of 
 all others the most unfit to be entrusted with the functions of public 
 accuser, especially in cases where their own admitted weaknesses are 
 in question, or they are charged with immoralities of which they are 
 quite incapable. The impunity of the slanderous press is effectually 
 secured by this cardinal defect in our system of criminal jurisprudence 
 although it must be admitted, that the exercise of a public prosecu- 
 tor's functions, in cases of libel on private character, would be attend- 
 ed in many cases with extreme difficulty, and that it would always 
 require a very nice and delicate hand to discharge his duties. 
 
 3. A careful consideration of the true objects of a good Libel law, 
 and of the defects which prevail in our o>\ n, brings us easily to the 
 remaining and most important head of discourse the remedy required. 
 And first of all we m\y very briefly dispose of some projects often 
 propounded by persons who have had litile practical acquaintance 
 with the subject, and are not even much conversant with the discus- 
 sion of it. 
 
 The necessity of defining what a libel is, has often been urged; but 
 the impossibility of framing any such definition is at once perceived 
 when the attempt is made; and it exists in the very nature of the 
 thing. No definition of cheating, of cruelty, of conspiracy, can ever 
 be given in any particularity of detail; and to contrive one which 
 should meet all cases of libel would be absolutely impossible. The 
 ill success which has attended the only limitation fixed, the only cri- 
 terion established of libel or no libel has not at all tended to encou- 
 rage any reflecting or experienced person in the pursuit of definitions. 
 Slander is only actionable if it imputes an indictable offence. What 
 is the consequence of a line thus drawn, and drawn to all appearance,
 
 DISSERTATION ON THE LAW OF LIBEL AND SLANDER. 211 
 
 upon a sufficiently plain and precise principle viz. on the only prin- 
 ciple that has ever been propounded in discussing the question of defi- 
 nitions? The consequence has been a complete failure; the line ex- 
 cludes what it should include, and vice versd; the definition has every 
 fault that a definition can have; words are actionable which ought 
 not to be so, as, " He committed an assault" while no action lies 
 for words which impute the most serious offences, as, " He committed 
 incest and adultery" or which tend to dishonor as, " He is a liar, 
 a coward, and a scoundrel." 
 
 Another proposal is to make the truth in every case a defence. But 
 independent of the objection already stated to this rule in the case of 
 private libels, even public libels may be so conceived as to be quite 
 true in all their statements of fact, and yet be most dangerous to the 
 peace and safety of the community. A perfectly well-grounded 
 charge may be brought against the government at a moment of public 
 excitement, and accompanied with furious commentary tending to 
 produce revolt. The passions of the multitude may be roused at a 
 moment of public danger, from famine or invasion, by statements 
 wholly consistent with the truth the making of which can do nothing 
 but harm the suppression of whirh is the duty of every good citizen. 
 The troops may be appealed to by details quite true, yet brought for- 
 ward at such a moment, and urged with such invective, as may excite 
 a dangerous mutiny. The slaves in a colony may be excited to insur- 
 rection by a statement much under the truth, of their grievances, and 
 of the crimes by which they were carried into slavery and have been 
 kept in it of their natural and imprescriptible right to freedom ac- 
 companied, for instance, with the recital of Dr. Johnson's celebrated 
 toast, given at Oxford, at the table of the head of a house there u a 
 speedy insurrection of the negroes in Jamaica, and success to it." So 
 on the other hand, many falsehoods may be published, and even pub- 
 lished with a malicious intention, and yet their tendency being inno- 
 cuous, this will not constitute a libel. The mere truth or falsehood, 
 then, of any matter published, is not a criterion of the innocence or 
 guilt of the publication. 
 
 There are oilier reformers of the Libel law who have considered 
 the abolition of the ex ojfficio power to prosecute, as a remedy for all 
 defects. That it would operate a very imperfect relief, however, and 
 would leave much of the mischief untouched even as regards public 
 libels, must be admitted. But we may go a great deal further, and 
 question its being any advantage at all. That it should be placed 
 under wholesome restriction, is very certain. But the evils arising 
 from the want of a public prosecutor who shall institute proceedings, 
 to preserve the purity of the pre^s and check its licentiousness, have 
 been already shown under the head of this discourse. 
 
 An attentive and dispassionate review of the subject, will show the 
 true remedies for the existing defects, to be deduced from the state- 
 ments already made respecting the objects in view and respecting 
 those defects. 
 
 First, It seems necessary to place the power of filing ex ojfflcio in-
 
 212 DISSERTATION ON THE LAW OP LIBEL AND SLANDER. 
 
 formations under the control of a grand jury. The law of Scotland 
 is in some respects far better than our own, as regards the prosecution, 
 of offences. The public prosecutor, representing the Crown, is a 
 known and responsible officer, to whose hands is entrusted the impor- 
 tant duty of commencing and conducting all criminal proceedings. 
 But in case he should pass over any offence committed, the party in- 
 jured, or in case of murder or abduction the relations of the party, are 
 allowed to prosecute with the public prosecutor's concurrence, (con- 
 course,) which is understood to be granted as of course. Instead of 
 this power so confided to a single person being more liable to abuse 
 in the case of political offences, it is perhaps less likely to be abused, 
 because a grand jury has no individual responsibility, and may receive 
 any bill preferred by an obscure person, as happened in the cele- 
 brated case of the Dean of St. Asaph, where a country attorney insti- 
 tuted proceedings, and the grand jury at once found the bill. It is not 
 very likely that the Lord Advocate should ever put a person on his 
 trial for a public libel or other political offence, unless the feeling 
 among those classes from whom petty jurymen are taken, happened 
 to be favorably disposed towards the prosecution. Nevertheless, the 
 additional control of a grand jury would have the effect of preventing 
 many vexatious proceedings, which may, as the law now stands, be 
 instituted against any obnoxious person, both by the exojjicio powers 
 of the Attorney-general, and by the privileges of the Lord Advocate, 
 merely to give annoyance, and cause expense without any regard to 
 the probability of conviction. In the still more important department 
 of libels against private persons, we have already had occasion to see 
 how important the office of a prosecutor is for keeping the press pure. 
 It would, however, ba expedient to give the person libelled some 
 share in the conduct of the proceedings, as an intervening party, 
 although it might not be fit to give him a veto upon the instituting of 
 them. 
 
 Secondly, In all cases whatever of prosecution, whether for public 
 or private libel, whether by Criminal Information or Indictment, and 
 in all actions brought, the defendant should have a right, upon notice, 
 to give the truth in evidence, subject to the next proposition; but then 
 the truth should only go to the question of intention and tendency, as 
 one element for resolving the question whether or not the defendant is 
 guilty of the matter laid to his charge, and if guilty, what punishment 
 he ought to receive, or what damages he ought to pay, and should in 
 no case be of itself a conclusive defence by way of justification. The 
 notice to be givon by him of his intention to tender such evidence 
 under the general issue, ought to be special, with leave to the prose- 
 cutor or plaintiff to require a fuller particular under the authority of 
 a judge at Chambers; and the evidence tendered at the trial must of 
 course be confined within the limits of the notice. 
 
 Thirdly, It being of the utmost importance that anonymous slander 
 should be discouraged, that the real author should by all means be 
 reached, arid that the conspiracy between the slanderer and the pub- 
 lisher already adverted to should be defeated, the right to give evidence
 
 DISSERTATION ON THE LAW OF LIBEL AND SLANDER. 213 
 
 of the truth of the matters published should bo confined strictly, both 
 in civil and criminal cases, to 'the real author; and in order further to 
 prevent collusion and fraud, the mere statement or admission of a 
 party that he is the author should be of no avail, but before the 
 evidence is received, he ought to prove to the satisfaction of the court 
 that he is the real author. The consequences of this arrangement 
 would be, that whoever lent himself to publish the libels of others, 
 must be content to sud'er punishment without the chance of escape or 
 even mitigation from the matters being undeniably true; while the 
 real author would have every inducement to come forward, and 
 would have all the benefit of the truth to which he is entitled. Nor 
 can it be said with any correctness, that this restriction upon the mere 
 publisher is unfavorable to the party complaining of injury to his 
 character; for it is no kind of imputation upon any one who offers to 
 meet any charge of his traducer, that he prosecutes the hired publisher 
 without defying him to prdduce his charges, since he gives him at 
 the same time full power to escape by putting forward the true author 
 of the slander. 
 
 Fourthly, It seems necessary, in order to make a prosecution satis- 
 factory in the case of private libel, that the prosecutor should have a 
 right to the fine which the libeller shall be sentenced to pay. This 
 will not only provide for the expense of the proceeding, but give the 
 same compensation which is now obtained by an action, and which 
 we have seen cannot always be safely left with a jury. 
 
 Fifthly, In order to make the proceeding by Information as perfect 
 as it can be, there seems to be a necessity for exposing the witnesses 
 who make affidavit to examination in court. Now, nothing can be 
 more easy than to require that in every case of a Criminal Informa- 
 tion being granted, the defendant should have the right to call for the 
 prosecutor's witnesses that is, for the production of all the persons 
 who joined wiih the prosecutor in making the affidavits upon which 
 the rule was obtained, the defendant being at the same time com- 
 pelled, whether he calls for the prosecutor's witnesses or not, to pro- 
 duce the persons who made affidavit against the rule. It is evident 
 that if this proceeding were attended with this production of the 
 witnesses on both sides, it would become extremely satisfactory; for, 
 while on the one hand, it exposes the conduct of the party libelled to a 
 severe scrutiny, it protects him on the other hand from all false swear- 
 ing as far as cross-examination can a fiord such security. 
 
 It may be a question whether the parties themselves should not 
 possess the right of presenting themselves as witnesses, to undergo 
 cross-examination. Nor does there seem to be any good reason 
 against this permission, except that it is contrary to the general rules 
 of our law of evidence, and that there is no good reason for confining 
 such an examination of parties to the case of libel. It is in no re- 
 spect contrary to the. principles on which the law of evidenqe should 
 be grounded ; and if the examination were extended to other cases, 
 our jurisprudence would only be so much lh<: more improved. 
 
 Lastly^ The power of having public libels tried by a special jury,
 
 214 DISSERTATION ON THE LAW OF LIBEL AND SLANDER. 
 
 ought by all means to be taken away. There is no reason why private 
 cases should not still be triable by special jury, at the option of either 
 party. But there also is no good reason why libel, or indeed any 
 other misdemeanor prosecuted by the public, should not be referred 
 to the same tribunal which disposes of the lives and liberties of the 
 subject in the case of all the graver offences known to the law.
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ORDERS IN COUNCIL. MR. STEPHEN'S CHARACTER. MR. PERCE- 
 
 VAL'S DEATH. 
 
 THE continental system of Napoleon, the idea and even the outline of which he 
 took from the policy of the Republic, and especially the Executive Directory, formed 
 during the latter part of his life, that is, after the termination of the peace of Amiens, 
 the favorite object of all his attempts. The extension of his territorial possessions, 
 and his direct power by the annexation of some provinces to France; the union of 
 the kingdom of Italy with his imperial crown; and the foundation of dependent 
 monarchies under members of his family in Naples and in Spain; were no doubt 
 valued by him as in themselves tending to his own aggrandisement and that of his 
 adopted country; yet as long as Great Britain remained unsubdued and with re- 
 sources little exhausted even by the expenses of protracted wars, he knew that 
 his security was exceedingly imperfect, and that a rallying point always must re- 
 main for whatever continental powers should make an effort to regain independence. 
 The projects of invasion, if they were ever seriously entertained, he soon laid 
 aside. It cannot be doubted that the chief benefit he expected from them, as far as 
 they regarded England, was the shock which the attempt, however unsuccessful, 
 must give to the stability of a singularly artificial political and commercial sys- 
 tem. Nor could he ever reckon upon more than a temporary success in Ireland, to 
 which the views of the Directory had been directed in vain while affairs rendered 
 such a plan far less likely to fail. The unbroken and unprecedented triumph of the 
 British navy rendered all attempts at colonial warfare desperate, while the success 
 of our cruizers in sweeping the seas made the combined maritime resources of 
 France, Holland, and Spain alike ineffectual to embarrass our commerce or to pro- 
 tect their own. We had neither territory, nor dependencies, nor ships, nor trade, 
 directly exposed to his power; and his whole supremacy, whether of direct power 
 or indirect influence in Europe, seemed to arm him witli no force which could bo 
 pointed immediately against, the 
 
 Toto pcnitus divisos orbc nritannos. 
 
 Vet to injure us to reduce our resources to cripple our trade to woakrn our 
 authority in the world seemed necessary for his reputation, and even for his own 
 security. Accordingly this was the point to which all his views were directed; and 
 he never subjugated an enemy, or overpowered a rival, or seized upon a place, with- 
 out endeavoring in the very first instance to inako the event conducive towards tlm 
 great design of injuring British trade.
 
 216 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 There was evidently but one way in which this could be effected and that was 
 to unite the continent in a general league against all commercial intercourse with 
 our islands. If this could be rendered complete, our trade must be confined to our 
 own dominions in Europe, the colonies, and India, and to those of our former sub- 
 jects and kinsmen of America. A vast bulk of commerce would thus remain 
 wholly beyond his reach; but a severe blow would also be struck by the entire 
 loss of the European market. 
 
 In order, however, to render this scheme at all effectual, the European league 
 must be complete. A single country having sea-ports, and communicating with 
 other countries, raised the European blockade, because once oilr goods were intro- 
 duced there, an entrepot was obtained through which they might be sent all over 
 the continent. Accordingly, wherever the French arms penetrated, although the 
 sovereignty of the country might not be seized upon by France, she yet required 
 the rigorous exclusion of all British ships and trade, as a condition of leaving the 
 territory in possession of its former owners, even when these might be at peace or 
 possibly in alliance with England, and whatever might have been the original title 
 by which their dominions were acquired. This was carried so far, that in 1806, 
 when Hanover was occupied by Prussia, Napoleon required the exclusion of our 
 commerce with that Electorate, as an execution, or at least a consequence, of the 
 treaty by which Prussia had previously bound herself to exclude it from her other 
 territories. Nevertheless, such is the elasticity of trade, so extremely prone are 
 men to run almost any pecuniary risks for the sake of having the chance of pecu- 
 niary gain, and so difficult is it to watch an extended line of sea-coast, that British 
 produce found its way into all parts of the continent, although at prices somewhat 
 raised by the obstructions thrown in its way. Napoleon was therefore determined 
 to try the effect of more severe measures of exclusion; and when the premature and 
 ill-concerted resistance of Prussia, in the autumn of 180G (principally occasioned 
 by her refusing implicit submission to the commercial measures of France) had 
 speedily terminated in the complete overthrow of her military power and had placed 
 her entirely at the conqueror's mercy, the first use he made of his victory was to 
 issue his famous Berlin decree, by which he professed to interdict all commerce, 
 and even all intercourse, direct or indirect, wiih the British dominions. This inter- 
 dict, so important in its consequences, bore date the 20th November, 1806, at Ber- 
 lin, which he had then occupied with his troops, having driven the King from his 
 capital, after the entire overthrow of his army at the battle of Auerstadt. It de- 
 clared the British islands in a state of blockade all British subjects, wheresoever 
 found, prisoners of war all British goods lawful prize. It interdicted all corre- 
 spondence with our dominions; prohibited all commerce in our produce; and ex- 
 cluded from all the ports of France, and of the countries under French control, every ' 
 vessel, of what nation soever, that had touched at a British port. The alleged 
 ground of this measure was the distinction made by England, but not by her alone, 
 or by any maritime state now for the first time, between enemy's property taken on 
 shore or at sea (the former net bring prize to the captors, unless it belonged to 
 the hostile state; the latter being liable to capture, though belonging to private indi- 
 viduals) the similar distinction as to prisoners of war, who on shore are only made 
 of persons taken with arms in their hands and the extension of the rig'.it of block- 
 ade, which it was alleged we should restrict to places actually invested by an 
 adequate force. The Berlin Decree was declared to be in force until England 
 should agree to make the same law of capture applicable by sea and by land; and 
 to abandon the right of declaring coasts or ports not actually invested, in a state of 
 blockade. 
 
 It has been already observed that Napoleon borrowed from the Directory the out- 
 line of these commercial measures. The main provisions of the Berlin Decree are 
 to be found in the Decrees of July 1706, and January 1798; the former of which 
 professed to treat all neutrals in the same manner in which they should submit to 
 be treated by England; the latter of which made all English goods or colonial pro- 
 duce liable to seizure wherever found, and all vessels to capture having any part of 
 their cargo so composed shut the French ports to every vessel that had touched at 
 any British port and even went to the barbarous extremity, not imitated by Napo- 
 leon, of denouncing death to all neutral seamen found onboard of English ships.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 217 
 
 Although some parts of tlio Berlin Decree were mere angry menace?, which 
 France li;ul no power whatever to execute, as the blockade of our whole coast, yet 
 there were parts which she could carry into execution, at least to such an extent as 
 must occasion great temporary embarrassment to the nations of the continent, and 
 some interruption to our commerce. The seizure of all British produce, and the 
 exclusion of all vessels that had touched at a British port, were the most formidable 
 parts of the measure; and against these provisions the trading classes were urgent 
 in their remonstrances. Napoleon sternly answered that he would not yield a 
 hair's-breadth that the utmost commercial distress must be undergone, if neces- 
 sary to make England feel the weight of his hostility and that the continent must 
 be prepared for returning to the b irter of the fourth century rather than yield to our 
 pretensions, and suffer our commerce to escape his vengeance. 
 
 All men of sense and foresight saw plainly that this system never could be com- 
 pletely successful, and that by far the wisest course for England to pursue would 
 be that of leaving France and the neutral states, especially America, to fight it out 
 amongst themselves, secure that the result must be favorable to our trade, as long 
 as our goods were in universal demand, and could no where else be obtained. The 
 thing most to be dreaded was any retaliating measures on our part, since by these 
 we must both increase the obstructions raised to our commerce by the attempts of 
 France, in which, without the help of our prohibitions, enforced by our navy, she 
 never could succeed; and also bring on a contention, possibly a rupture, with neu- 
 tral powers, on whose aid as carriers we entirely depended, as long as the conti- 
 nent could not be approached by our own vessels. But such were not the views 
 of men in power, of either party. The Whigs were in office when the Berlin De- 
 cree of November 180(> arrived in this country; and so little time was given for 
 deliberation, before a course fraught with misc-hiefof the greatest magnitude was 
 resolved upon, that on the 7th of January following, the first of those fatal mea- 
 sures was announced, since so well known under the name of the Orders in Coun- 
 cil. This first and Whig Order declared, that the Berlin Decree authorised Eng- 
 land to blockade all the French dominions, to forbid any neutral power from enter- 
 ing our ports which had touched at any port of France or her dependencies, and 
 justified us in capturing all her produce; but that we were unwilling to inflict such 
 injuries on neutral nations. There never perhaps was a more absurd, not to say 
 false statement in any instrument of state. The right thus pompously asserted is 
 that of self-destruction, and the reason given for not exercising it, is the fear of 
 injuring a neighbor. Jt is as if a man were to say to bis adversary, " You have 
 thrown a rocket at my house and my neighbor's, which from your great distance 
 fell short of both buildings therefore I have a full right to burn my own dwelling, 
 but I will not, for fear I should set fire to the next house." The Order then states, 
 that self-defence though not requiring complete retaliation, yet calls for something 
 of the kind in other words that though the duty of self-defence does not require 
 the act of entire self-destruction, it yet calls for a partial self-destruction and then 
 it declares that for the purpose of retaliating upon the enemy the "evils of his own 
 injustice," no vessel shall trade from one enemy's port to another, or from one port 
 to another of a French ally's coast shut against English vessels; so that the only 
 chance our goods had of being spread over the continent being by getting them 
 smuggled into some port less watched by France than the rest, and then their 
 being freely conveyed from thence in all directions, the wisdom of the Whig cabi- 
 net, then flushed with Napoleon's successes into a state of most belligerent excite- 
 ment against him, induced them to institute a blockade against our own commerce, 
 by forbidding any one to carry British manufactures from place to place of the con- 
 tinent. The only chance we had of sending our goods any where, was getting them 
 in some where, and then having them freely distributed every where. "No, said 
 the ministers of lH<>7, let them bo stopped where they are landed, and let no Ameri- 
 can think of carrying them elsewhere. I,c t tln-m lie and ml in the warehouses of 
 Pola, and Trieste, and Anemia, and C'adi/.. Mut if any American or Sicilian pre- 
 sume to carry them on to their final destination, at Marseilles, or Bordeaux, or 
 Nantz, let him be seized and condemned for violating the blockade instituted by 
 the very effectual London decree of England in aid of the empty Berlin Decree uf 
 VOL. I. I'J
 
 218 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 France, both Decrees alike levelled at the existence of the British commerce, 
 though levelled with very different aim." It is farther to be remarked, that there 
 existed no right whatever in England to issue any such decree against neutral 
 states, merely because France had violated neutral rights. If time had been given 
 for seeing whether or not America and other neutrals would submit to the Berlin 
 Decree, something might have been said in behalf of our order. But it was issued 
 7th January, 1807, the Berlin Decree having been dated 20th November 1806 
 consequently it was physically impossible that we should then know what course 
 America intended to pursue with respect to the French invasion of her rights. To 
 every fundamental objection afterwards urged against the other Orders in Council 
 issued at the close of the same year by the Tory Ministers, is the Whig Order of 
 January 1807 completely exposed. It is equally a violation of neutral rights; tends 
 equally to create a misunderstanding with America; operates equally in the wrong 
 direction, namely, to the injury of our own commerce; and has equally the pre- 
 posterous effect of assisting Napoleon in carrying into execution against us those 
 measures which, without our own help, must in his hands be nearly, if not alto- 
 gether, inoperative. 
 
 Accordingly, although it suited the views of party to forget that order, and only, 
 to attack those of Mr. Perceval, which were framed on the very same principles, 
 yet the Americans never made the least distinction between the two; and Mr. 
 Brougham, while contending against the system on behalf of the English merchants 
 and manufacturers at the bar of the House of Commons in 1808, objected in the 
 very same ter.ns to both, and always treated the preamble of the Whig Order, which 
 stated a measure of vigor against ourselves enforcing the evils of Napoleon's hos- 
 tility towards our commerce, to be retorting those evils on himself, as the leading 
 absurdity of the whole system. It must be at the same time added, that when sub- 
 sequent measures displayed more fully the absurd impolicy of their own act, the 
 Whig party did eminently useful service by their strenuous opposition to the ex- 
 tended system of impolicy and injustice. To these ulterior measures it is now ne- 
 cessary that we should advert, but first something may be said of their author. 
 
 Mr. Stephen was a person of great natural talents, which, if accidental circum- 
 stances had permitted him fully to cultivate, and early to bring into play upon the 
 best scene of political exertion, the House of Commons would have placed him 
 high in the first rank of English orators. For he had in an eminent degree that 
 strenuous firmness of purpose, and glowing ardor of soul, which lies at the root of 
 all eloquence; he was gifted with great industry, a retentive memory, and inge- 
 nuity which was rather apt to err by excess than by defect. His imagination was, 
 besides, lively, and powerful; little certainly under the chastening discipline of 
 severe taste, but often enabling him to embody his own feelings and recollections 
 with great distinctness of outline and strength of coloring. He enjoyed, more- 
 over, great natural strength of constitution, and had as much courage as falls to the 
 lot of most men. But having passed the most active part of his life in one of the 
 West Indian colonies, where he followed the profession of a barrister, and having 
 after his return addicted himself to the practice of a court which affords no scope 
 at all for oratorical display,* it happened to him, as it has to many other men of 
 natural genius for rhetorical pursuits, that he neither gained the correct taste which 
 the h;ibit of frequenting refined society, and above all, addressing a refined audi- 
 tory, can alone bestow, nor acquired the power of condensation which is sure to be 
 lost altogether by those who address hearers compelled to listen, like judges and 
 juries, instead of having to retain them by closeness of reasoning, or felicity of 
 illustration. It thus came to pass, that when he entered Parliament, although he 
 could by no means be said to have failed, but on the contrary at first, and when 
 kept under some restraint, he must be confessed to have had considerable success, 
 yet he was, generally speaking, a third-rate debater, because of his want of the 
 tact, the nice sense of what captivates such an audience, how far to press a sub- 
 ject, how much fancy to display all so necessary for an acceptable speaker and 
 powerful debater, one who is listened to by the hearers as a pleasure, not as a 
 
 * The Prize Appeal Court in the Privy Council.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 219 
 
 duty for the hearer's own gratification, anil not for the importance of the subject 
 handled one in short \vlio must address and win the tribute of attention from a 
 volunteer audience like the House of Commons, and not merely receive the fixed 
 dole of a hearing from the compulsory attention of the Bench. There was another 
 circumstance connected with Mr. Stephen's nature, which exceedingly lessened hia 
 influence, and indeed incalculably lowered his merit as a speaker. He was of a 
 vehement, and even violent temper; a temper too, not like that of merely irascible 
 men prone to sudden fits of anger or of excitement, but connected also with a pecu- 
 liarly sanguine disposition; and as he thus saw objects of the size and in the colors 
 presented by this medium, so he never could imagine that they wore a dilTerent 
 aspect to other eyes, and exerted comparatively little interest in other bosoms. 
 Hence he was apt to proceed with more and more animation, with increasing fer- 
 vor, while his hearers had become calm and cold. Nor could any thing tend more 
 to alienate an audience like the Commons, or indeed to lessen the real value of hia 
 speeches. It must have struck all who heard him when, early in 1808, he entered 
 Parliament under the auspices of Mr. Perceval, that whatever defects he had, arose 
 entirely from accidental circumstances, and not at all from intrinsic imperfections; nor 
 could any one doubt that his late entrance upon parliamentary life, and his vehe- 
 mence of temperament, alone kept him from the front rank of debaters; if not of 
 eloquence itself. 
 
 With Mr. Perceval, his friendship had been long and intimate. To this the simi- 
 larity of their religious character mainly contributed, for Mr. Stephen was a dis- 
 tinguished member of the Evangelical Parly to which the minister manifestly leaned 
 without belonging to it; and he was one whose pious sentiments and devotional 
 habits occupied a very marked place in his whole scheme of life. No man has, 
 however, a right to question, be it ever so slightly, his perfect sincerity. To this 
 his blameless life bore the most irrefragable testimony. A warm and steady friend 
 a man of the strictest integrity and nicest sense of both honor and justice in all 
 the relations of private society wholly without a stain though envy might well 
 find whereon to perch, malice itself in the exasperated discords of religious and 
 civil controversy never could descry a spot on which to fasten. Let us add the 
 bright praise, and which sets at nought all lesser defects of mere taste, had he lived 
 to read these latter lines, he would infinitely rather have had this sketch stained 
 with all the darker shades of its critical matter, than being exalted, without these 
 latter lines, to the level of Demosthenes or of Chatham, praised as the first of ora- 
 tors, or followed as the most brilliant of statesmen. 
 
 His opinions upon political questions were clear and decided, taken up with the 
 boldness felt with the ardor asserted with the- determination which marked hia 
 zealous and uncompromising spirit. Of all subjects, that of the Slave Trade and 
 Slavery most engrossed his mind. His experience in the West Indies, his reli- 
 gious feelings, and his near connection with Mr. \\ ilberforce, whose sister he mar- 
 ried, all contributed to give this great question a peculiarly sacred aspect in hia 
 eyes; nor could he cither avoid mixing it up with almost all other discussions, or 
 prevent his views of its various relations from influencing his sentiments on other 
 matters of political discussion. His first publication was the " Crisis f the Stis^ar 
 Culonies," a striking and animated picture of the mischiefs of Slavery, and a strong 
 recommendation of the cause of St. Domingo lo the f.ivor of this country. Thus 
 the conduct of Napoleon towards St. Domingo plainly sowed in his mind the seeds 
 of that hatred which he bore to the Kmperor and all bis plans; and to this source 
 may ac.ccrdingly be traced, not IIH rely his " Lift <f TuufUtint" written partly to 
 gain f.ivor for the negroes, and partly to stimulate the public indignation against 
 France during the alarms of invasion which accompanied the renewal of hostilities 
 in 1UI!; but also the " Opportunity," in which In; very prematurely urged the 
 policy of funning an alliance with the new IJl.ick Republic, and soon afterwards 
 liis able and eloquent pamphlet on the " Iluttgirx <f tltc Country" This appeared 
 early in 1-- : 0?: and contains, among oilier thiii'js of undoubted excellence, a signal 
 proof of his enthusiasm outstripping bis better judgment for he deliberately traces 
 the mi-fortunes of Kuropc in the late wars against France lo the spt--ci.il interpoM- 
 tioji of Providence, btcausu of Kngland repeatedly rejecting the imasure ul SLivu
 
 220 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Trade Abolition; forgetful that although those calamities indirectly and conse- 
 quentially injured England, they fell far more heavily, and in the very first instance, 
 upon the continental states which had neither a Colony, nor a Slave, nor a Slave 
 trading vessel in their possession, which, therefore could not have committed the 
 offence that called down the penalty, and which were subjugated by one of the 
 greatest Slave holders and Slave traders in the world, France, the only gainer by 
 all these visitations of Divine vengeance. It was further remarked, that even as to 
 England his theory failed very soon after the work was published. For hardly had 
 the Abolition been carried, than its authors were driven from power; and the Fifth 
 Coalition was dissolved by the defeat of Russia at the great battle of Friedland. 
 
 Baffled, therefore, in his 'speculations respecting the cause of Napoleon's suc- 
 cesses, he betook himself to devising means of counteracting his influence as used 
 against this country. In consequence of his jealous hostility towards Napoleon, 
 and also from his intimate acquaintance with the frauds practised by neutrals in 
 the court of Prize Appeal, where he had the leading practice until he became a 
 Master in Chancery, he had early turned his attention to the French commercial 
 measures, and upon his friend Mr. Perceval coming to the head of affairs, he ob- 
 tained his assent to a far more complete system of retaliation than the Whig Order 
 in Council of January 1807. He it was who first framed and afterwards zealously 
 supported the famous Orders of November in that year, which brought the mercan- 
 tile conflict with France, and unhappily with America also, to a crisis. These Or- 
 ders were ushered in by a Tract upon the general subject of the conduct pursued by 
 neutrals, entitled " War in disguise or the Frauds of the Neutral Flags,-" of all his 
 works the most celebrated, the most justly admired, and a work certainly of extra- 
 ordinary merit. The facts on which it dwelt were undeniably true, and as they 
 appeared to show a systematic evasion of belligerent rights by the shifts and con- 
 trivances of neutral traders, connived at, and indeed encouraged by their govern- 
 ments, it was no hard matter to influence the people of this country against such. 
 conduct, and make them believe that this was really hostility towards us and our 
 interests under the mask of neutrality. The fallacy thus greedily swallowed by 
 the nation's prejudices was very sincerely believed by the zealous and impetuous 
 author, and the Ministers whom he counselled; and it is the prevailing fallacy 
 which runs through the whole policy of the Orders in Council, from that of the 
 Whigs in January to that of the Tories in November 1807. This fallacy consists 
 in supposing that the trade driven by the neutrals with our enemies, because it 
 benefits the latter, is therefore hurtful to ourselves, although it perhaps benefits us 
 tenfold; on which is engrafted another mistake, if indeed it be not rather the root 
 of the whole error, that of grudging the impossibility of our ever deriving advantage 
 from the exchange of our goods without something of the benefit redounding to our 
 enemies, customers, and consumers. 
 
 When in the train of this brilliant and captivating publication the Orders of No- 
 vember appeared, all men were struck with the magnitude of the design on which 
 they were framed, and all reflecting men regarded them as calculated to execute the 
 grand purpose of the first Decree. Their principle was indeed abundantly simple. 
 Napoleon had f>aid that no vessel should touch a British port and then enter a 
 French one, or one under French control. The Orders in Council said that no vessel 
 whatever should enter any such port unless she had first touched at some port of 
 Great Britain. Many other regulations opposed to neutrals were made in prosecution 
 of this principle, and an ad valorem duty was levied upon their cargoes. Immediately 
 after came forth Napoleon's Milan Decree, bearing date the 17th December, 1807, 
 enforcing more rigorously that of Berlin, and declaring all vessels lawful prize, 
 which had submitted to the right of search claimed by England. 
 
 The first result of our general blockade of all Europe was the adoption in this 
 country of a system most liable to every kind of abuse that of licenses issued to 
 let certain vessels pass notwithstanding the Orders; and this was accompanied by 
 a yet more abominable system of fabricated papers, which naturalised among the 
 merchants and navigators of this country the worst practices of forgery and fraud. 
 The next result was the American Embargo and Non-Importation acts, operating a 
 suspension of all commerce with the United States. The distress experienced by
 
 INTRODUCTION. 221 
 
 the trade and manufactures of this country was extreme. A series of hostile pro- 
 ceedings with America was begun and after much suffering endured, extreme ill- 
 will engendered, many insults offered and resisted, this state of things ended in an 
 open rupture, which lasted till the end of the war in Europe, led to the capture by 
 the Americans of some British frigates, and was terminated by a most inglorious 
 expedition to Washington, and a most unfortunate one to New Orleans leading 
 to the injury of our national character in the one, and the tarnishing cf our military 
 fame in the other. 
 
 \Vlien the Orders in Council and the American Embargo first threatened British 
 commerce with destruction, the merchants and manufacturers of London, Hull, 
 Manchester and Liverpool, comprising all the industry of Yorkshire and Lanca- 
 shire, and all the general trade which centres in the capital, petitioned Parliament 
 against the obnoxious policy of the Orders, craved to be heard by their counsel, 
 and tendered evidence of the injuries sustained from the operation of those orders. 
 Mr. Brougham was their counsel, and was heard at the bar of both houses, where ho 
 likewise adduced the evidence during several weeks in support of the petitions. The 
 ministry, however, triumphed overall the attempts then made to defeat the system; 
 and it was not until four years after, in 1812, that, the general distress having gone 
 on increasing, there was found any chance of obtaining a more favorable hearing. 
 Both Mr. Brougham and Mr. Stephen were now members of the House of Com- 
 mons; and in March 1812, the subject was brought forward by the former. This 
 motion was then negatived; but soon after Easter, he presented petitions from the 
 same parties who had formerly been his clients: and on the motion of Lord Stan- 
 ley,* on the 28th of April, the House agreed without a division to hear evidence 
 in support of the petitions. The case was conducted every night for seven weeks 
 by Mr. Brougham and Mr. Baring, f than whom it would not have been possible to 
 find a more powerful coadjutor. His extensive possessions in America his con- 
 nections both of family and commerce with that country his former residence 
 there his vast mercantile knowledge derived from varied and long experience 
 bis great general information, and the depth as well as precision of his understand- 
 ing would have rendered him a most formidable adversary of the system, even 
 stript of all the weight which any cause that he espoused must derive from the 
 name, and authority, and resources, of the first merchant in the world. The in- 
 quiry on the side of the petitions was wholly conducted by these two members, and 
 each niirht presented new objections and new defeats to the Orders in Council, and 
 new advantages to the opposition by incidental debatings on petitions presented 
 by di>cussions arising on evidence tendered by other matters broached occasion- 
 ally in connection with the main subject. The government at first, conceiving that 
 there was a clamor raised out of doors against their policy, and hoping that this 
 would of itsdf subside, endeavored to gain time and put off the hearing of the evi- 
 dence. But Messrs. Brougham and Baring kept steadily to their purpose, and 
 insisted on calling in their witnesses at the earliest possible hour. They at length 
 prevailed so far as to have it understood that the hearing should proceed daily at 
 half-past four o'clock, and continue at the least till ten, by which means they gene- 
 rally kept it on foot till a much later hour, all but those who took a peculiar interest 
 in the subject having earlier left the house. 
 
 On the 11 th of May, a most lamentable catastrophe deprived the world of the Mi- 
 nister who was the chief stay of Mr. Stephen's system. Mr. Perceval was walking 
 arm in arm with that gentleman from Downing Street to the House, when lie was 
 met by a messenger whom the Secretary of the Treasury had despatched to hasten 
 him, the opposition having refused to suspend the examination longer, as the hour 
 appointed to begin had some time passed. Mr. Perceval, with his wonted activity, 
 darted forward to obey the summons, and was shot as he entered the lobby of the. 
 House. It was remarked that had Mr. Stephen, who walked on his left, been still 
 with him, he would have been most exposed to the blow of the assassin. At that 
 moment ttie inquiry had been recommenced, and Mr. Brougham was examining :i 
 witness, when he thought he heard a noiso as if a pistol had gone off in some ont-'d 
 
 Now Lurl of Derby. t Now Lord Asliburton.
 
 222 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 pocket such at least was the idea which instantaneously passed through his mind, 
 but did not interrupt his interrogation. Presently there were seen several persons 
 in the gallery running towards the doors; and before a minute more had passed, 
 General Gascoigne rushed up the House, and announced that the minister had been 
 shot, and had fallen on the spot dead. The House instantly adjourned. Exami- 
 nations were taken of the wretch who had struck the blow, and he was speedily 
 committed for trial by Mr. M. A. Taylor, who acted as a magistrate for Middlesex, 
 where the murder was committed. On that day week, Bellingham, having been 
 tried and convicted, was executed, to the eternal disgrace of the court which tried 
 him, and refused an application for delay, grounded on a representation that were 
 time given, evidence of his insanity could be obtained from Liverpool, where he 
 had resided and was known. It cannot with any truth be said that the popular 
 ferment, which so astonishing and shocking an event occasioned, had at all sub- 
 sided on the trial, the fourth day after the act was committed, and the day on which 
 the judge and jury were called upon calm in mind inaccessible to all feelings 
 above all outward impressions to administer strict and impartial justice. 
 
 The opponents of the Orders in Council refused peremptorily to suspend their 
 proceedings, in consequence of this lamentable event. Indeed the suspension of all 
 other business which it occasioned, was exceedingly favorable to the object of those 
 who were anxious for an opportunity to produce their proofs and obtain a decision. 
 A vast mass of evidence was thus brought forward, showing incontestably the dis- 
 tressed state of trade and manufactures all over the country, and connecting this 
 by clear indications with the operation of the impolitic system which had been re- 
 sorted to for " protecting our commerce, and retorting on the enemy the evils of his 
 own injustice." At length, on the 16th of June, Mr. Brougham brought forward 
 his motion for an address to the Crown to recall the obnoxious orders; and the 
 following was the speech which he delivered upon that occasion. The course of 
 the government was inexplicable. The absence of Mr. Stephen from his place, 
 where he had attended every hour of the preceding inquiry, and taken a most active 
 part in supporting the ministerial measure, plainly showed that a determination had 
 been come to which he could not approve. Yet if it was resolved to strike if the 
 system was abandoned there seems no intelligible reason why the leader of its 
 adversaries should be heard to describe the mischiefs that had flowed from it, and to 
 place its authors before the people as the cause of all they were enduring under it. 
 This, however, was the plan resolved upon; and after Mr. Brougham had been 
 heard in support of his motion, and Mr. Rose in defence of the system, and when 
 Mr. Baring had followed, Lord Castlereagh, on the part of the government, an- 
 nounced that the motion needed not be pressed to a division, because the Crown had 
 been advised immediately to rescind the orders. The effects produced by the nume- 
 rous petitions by the discussions to which these gave rise by the meetings in 
 different places by the testimony of the witnesses were so apparent within the 
 last fortnight, that there remained no doubt of the motion being carried, and hence 
 the determination to which the ministers deemed it prudent that they should come. 
 
 Mr. Stephen's absence on such an occasion was certainly not easily to be ac- 
 counted for, unless upon the supposition that he could not have born in his place 
 without expressing his dissatisfaction in terms so strong, possibly so contemp- 
 tuous as might not suit the precarious position in which the government now 
 were placed, deprived of Mr. Perceval, and opposed by Mr. Canning, as well as 
 the Whig party. To this government Mr. Stephen adhered, regarding it as the 
 remnant of his friend Mr. ['ore-oval's administration, and as regulated, generally 
 speaking, by principles the same as his own. He never was accused, at any time, 
 of unworthily sacrificing those principles for any consideration; and three years 
 afterwards he gave a memorable proof of his public virtue, by at once abandoning 
 the ministry, and resigning his seat in Parliament, because they pursued a 
 course which lie disapproved, upon the great subject of Colonial Slavery. He 
 retired into private life, abandoned all the political questions in which he took 
 so warm an interest, gave up the public business in which he still had strength 
 sufficient to bear a very active part, and relinquished without a struggle or a sigh 
 all the advantages of promotion both for himself and his family, although agree-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 223 
 
 ing with the government in every other part of their policy, because on that 
 which he believed conscientiously to be the most important of all their practical 
 views, they differed from his own. It would indeed be well if we had now and 
 then instances of so rare a virtue; and they who looked down upon this eminent 
 and excellent person as not having answered the expectations formed of his parlia- 
 mentary career, or sneered at his enthusiastic zeal for opinions in his mind of para- 
 mount importance, would have done well to respect at a distance merit which 
 they could not hope to imitate perhaps could not well comprehend merit, beside 
 which the lustre of the statesman's triumphs and the orator's fame grows pale.
 
 SPEECH 
 
 UPON THE PRESENT 
 
 STATE OF COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 
 
 JUNE 16, 1812. 
 
 SIR I rise to bring before the House a proposition regarding the 
 subject which has recently occupied so large a share of our attention 
 the present state of Trade and Manufactures, and (he sufferings of 
 the people of England. And I am confident I shall not be accused 
 of exaggeration when I say, that it is by far the most interesting and 
 momentous topic which can at this crisis engage the attention of Par- 
 liament. After six weeks spent in the inquiry after a mass of 
 evidence unparalleled in extent has been collected the time is at 
 length arrived, when we are called upon for the result of our investi- 
 gation, for our determination in behalf of the country, and our advice 
 to the Crown upon the mighty interests which we have been examin- 
 ing. But while I dwell upon the importance of this subject, I am 
 by no means disposed to follow the practice usual upon such occasions 
 and to magnify its extent or its difficulty. The question is indeed 
 one of unexampled interest, but of extremely little intricacy. Its 
 points are few in number they lie within a narrow range they are 
 placed near the surface and involved in no obscurity or doubt. Its 
 materials are only massive in outward appearance, and when viewed 
 at a distance. There seems to be a huge body of details. This load 
 of papers theso eight or nine hundred folios of evidence together 
 with the bulk of papers and petitions lying on your table, would 
 naturally enough frighten a careless observer with the notion that the 
 subject is vast and complicated. Yet I will venture to assert, that I
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES. 225 
 
 shall not proceed many minutes, before I have convinced not only 
 those who assisted in the labors of the committee not those merely 
 who have read the result of the Inquiry on our minutes but those 
 who now for the first time give their attention to the question, and 
 come here wholly ignorant of its merits, that there lias seldom been 
 a subject of u public nature brought before this House, through which 
 the path was shorter and surer, or led to a decision more obvious and 
 plain. 
 
 There is, however, sir, one task which meets me in the outset, and 
 one of so painful a nature, that I would fain recede from it. It is my 
 severe duty this night to make you acquainted with distresses of the 
 people, and principally of the lower orders, that is to say, the most 
 numerous and industrious classes of our countrymen. To handle 
 the question without entering into these afflicting details, or to travel 
 amongst them without the deepest uneasiness, would require an in- 
 genuity or an insensibility which are equally foreign to my nature. 
 For to whom could the scenes which we positively witnessed in the 
 committee be so distressing as to those whose anxiety for the welfare 
 of the lower orders impelled them to devote their days and nights to 
 the labors of the inquiry? And it is now my hard task to give those 
 who were not there to see and hear, some idea of what passed be- 
 fore our very eyes the strange and afflicting sight of respectable 
 ancient men, the pillars of the trade and credit of the country, coming 
 forth to lament, not that they saw wasting away beneath the fatal 
 policy of our government the hard-earned fruits of their honest and 
 industrious lives not that they were approaching to old age stripped 
 of the support which they been providing for that season but be- 
 cause they no longer had the means of saving from absolute want 
 the thousands of unhappy persons dependent upon them for subsist- 
 ence because they had no longer wages to give the thousands, who 
 were eager to work for any pittance to sustain life because, having 
 already exhausted their whole means, all the accumulations of their 
 lives, in the charitable offices of employing those poor people, they 
 were now brought to the brink of that dreadful alternative, either of 
 leaving them to perish, or of shutting their ears to the wants of con- 
 nections that had still stronger claims. These are things which I 
 c.uinot pass over; but I willingly delay entering upon them for some 
 little time; and at present I should prefer calling your attention to more 
 general circumstances, which less directly, though with equal force, 
 prove the unexampled calamities of the times. 
 
 And here, sir, I do not allude merely to the numerous petitions 
 preferred to Parliament, setting forth the distresses of the country, 
 and praying for a repeal of the orders in council. I will not dwell 
 upon these, nor ground my inferences upon them. And yet I well 
 might avail myself of such an argument on the present occasion. 
 For if the system was adopted for the express purpose of relieving 
 our trade and manufactures, what belter proof of its inefiicacy, than 
 the loud and general complaints of our merchants and workmen 
 against it? If the very ground and justification of those measures
 
 ORDERS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 has always been the necessity of affording relief to the commerce and 
 industry of the country, what can be more in point, while they are 
 urging the merits of the plan, than the fact, that Yorkshire, Lan- 
 cashire, and Warwickshire, all the great districts of our manufactures, 
 joined formerly in expressing their fears of the relief you were offer- 
 ing them; and now, after four years' trial of their virtues, loudly pray 
 to be saved from such a remedy, imploring you for pity sake to aban- 
 don them to the hostility of their enemies, and spare them the merciless 
 kindness of the protection under which they are groaning? Yet I 
 will forego whatever support the cause may derive from the fact of 
 these petitions, in order to dwell upon the more indirect and unex- 
 pected, and therefore wholly unsuspicious testimony, which it derives 
 from other quarters. I would beseech the House to cast its eye 
 abroad upon the various projects for obtaining relief, to which of late 
 the people have in different parts of the country had recourse the 
 attempts and devices to which in the restlessness of their sufferings, 
 they have been resorting, with the vain hope of shifting or shaking 
 off from them the load of calamity under which they labor. Some of 
 those schemes, I know, are most inadequate to the object some are 
 nugatory and absurd some are positively hurtful to them, and deserv- 
 ing of reprobation. But they all proceed from the feverish uneasiness, 
 the impatience of rest, which forms an undoubted symptom of the 
 prevailing malady. Take, for example, the disorders which in dif- 
 ferent districts have given rise to short-sighted attacks upon machinery 
 and other private property. Of these it is impossible to speak without 
 blame; but when we reflect on the misery which brought on this state 
 of violence, it is hard to avoid mingling pity with our censure. Ano- 
 ther remedy, as short-sighted though unhappily perfectly legal, I have 
 myself had occasion to see attempted in the course of my professional 
 employment I mean the applications which numerous bodies of 
 manufacturers have made to courts of justice, for enforcing one of 
 the most impolitic laws on the statute-book, the act of Elizabeth, 
 requiring magistrates to fix the rate of wages a law which has been 
 absurdly permitted to subsist, on the pretence that it was not likely to 
 be acted upon, and which, as might have been expected, stands ready to 
 promote mischief at the moment when it is most dangerous, without the 
 possibility of ever doing good. A third expedient has been thought of, 
 in application to this house for the abolition of sinecure places, or the 
 appropriation of their profits to the expenses of the war. Of this 
 remedy I by no means think so lightly as some do; it would indeed 
 only afford a trifling relief, but it would go far to prevent the recur- 
 rence of (lie evil, by diminishing the interest of many persons in the 
 continuance of hostilities, and would disarm, I believe, some of the most 
 warlike characters of the time. 
 
 But I would particularly entreat you to consider the numberless 
 petitions from almost every part of the country which now crowd 
 your table, against continuing the East India Company's monopoly. 
 That some of those applications are founded in the most just and 
 politic views of the subject, I am far from denying; that the great
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES. 227 
 
 and once opulent city of Liverpool, for instance, the second in the 
 empire, would de-rive material relief from that participation in the 
 East India trade, to which it has undoubted right, cannot be doubted; 
 and Glasgow, Bristol, and one or two other places, are in the same 
 predicament. But is this the case with all the other towns, I might 
 almost say villages, which have preferred the same prayer to us in 
 equally urgent terms? Is it the case with any considerable proportion 
 of them? What think yon, sir, of places demanding a share of this 
 trade, which have neither commerce nor manufactures? I will give 
 yon a specimen of others which have something to export, but not 
 exactly of the quality best suited to those Eastern markets. One 
 district has petitioned for a free exportation to the East Indies, which 
 to my knowledge raises no earthly produce but black horned cattle. 
 The potteries have demanded permission to send freely their porcelain 
 to China; and the ancient and respectable city of Newcastle, which 
 grows nothing but pit coal, has earnestly entreated that it may be 
 allowed to ship that useful article to supply the stoves and hot-houses 
 of Calcutta. All these projects prove nothing less than the incom- 
 petence of their authors to find out a remedy for their sufferings; but 
 they do most distinctly demonstrate how extensive and deep-seated 
 the evil must be, and how acute the sufferings which seek relief from 
 such strange devices. They remind one of the accounts which have 
 been handed down to us of the great pestilence which once visited 
 this city. Nothing in the story of that awful time is more affecting, 
 than the picture which it presents of the vain efforts made to seek 
 relief; miserable men might be seen rushing forth into streets, and 
 wildly grasping the first passenger they met, to implore his help, as 
 if by communicating the poison to others, they could restore health 
 to their own veins, or life to its victims whom they had left stretched 
 before it. In that dismal period there was no end of projects and 
 nostrums for preventing or curing the disease, and numberless empi- 
 rics every day started up with some new delusion, rapidly made for- 
 tunes of the hopes and terrors of the multitude, and then as speedily 
 disappeared, or were themselves borne down by the general destroyer. 
 Meanwhile the malady raged until its force was spent; the attempts 
 to curtail were doubtless all baffled; but the eagerness with which 
 men hailed each successive contrivance, proved too plainly how vast 
 was their terror, and how universal the suffering that prevailed. 
 
 So might I now argue, from the complaints and projects which 
 assail us on every hand, how deeply seated and widely spread is the 
 distress under which the people are suffering; but unhappily we 
 have to encounter its details in many other shapes. Although it is 
 not my intention to travel through the mass of evidence on your 
 table, the particulars of which I may safely leave to my honorable 
 friend,* who has so laudibly devoted his time and abilities to this 
 investigation. Let me only, sir, remind the House of the general 
 outline of the inquiry. We have examined above a hundred wit- 
 
 Mr. Baring, now Lord Ashburton.
 
 2.28 ORDERS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 nesses, from more than thirty of the great manufacturing and mer- 
 cantile districts. These men were chosen almost at random, from 
 thousands whom we could have brought before you with less trouble 
 than it required to make the selection; the difficulty was to keep back 
 evidence, not to find it; for our desire to state the case was tempered 
 by a natural anxiety to encroach as little as possible on the time of 
 the House, and to expedite by all means the conclusion of an inquiry, 
 upon the result of which so many interests hung in anxious suspense. 
 In all this mass of evidence there was not. a single witness who 
 denied, or doubted I beg your pardon, there was one one solitary 
 and remarkable exception, and none other even among those called 
 in support of the system, who even hesitated in admitting the dread- 
 ful amount of the present distresses. Take, for example, one of our 
 great staples, the hardware, and look to Warwickshire, where it used 
 to flourish. Birmingham and its neighborhood, a district of thirteen 
 miles round that centre, was formerly but one village, I might say 
 one continued workshop, peopled with about four hundred thousand 
 of the most industrious and skilful of mankind. In what state do 
 you now find that once busy hive of men? Silent, still, and desolate 
 during half the week; during the rest of it miserably toiling at re- 
 duced wages, for a pittance scarcely sufficient to maintain animal life 
 in the lowest state of comfort, and at all times swarming with un- 
 happy persons, willing, anxious to work for their lives, but unable 
 to find employment. He must have a stout heart within him who 
 can view such a scene and not shudder. But even this is not all, 
 matters are getting worse and worse; the manufacturers are wailing 
 for your decision, and if that be against them they will instantly yield 
 to their fate, and turn adrift the people whom they still, though in- 
 adequately, support with employment. Upon your vote of this night 
 the destiny of thousands in that district alone depends; and I ask you 
 before you give it to tell me what must become of those thousands, 
 or of the country in which they shall, be turned loose? I am aware 
 that the language I use may be misinterpreted it may be perverted 
 into a threat; but I speak of incontrovertible iacts from the evidence 
 before you, when I affirm, that if you this night say " NO" to the 
 petitions against the Orders in Council, you let loose upon the country 
 thousands and thousands I will not say of riotous, or disorderly, or 
 seditious, or even discontented people but only of hungry men who 
 must either find food or perish. Look now to Yorkshire to the 
 clothing country. The late Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the only 
 conversation I had the honor of holding with him upon this question, 
 was very confident that the case of the petitioners would fail in these 
 districts; you have proved it, said he, as far as respects hardware, 
 but, you will do nothing in the woollen trade. Sir, we have gone 
 through the case, and how stand the facts? It is still stronger with 
 respect to the clothing than the hard ware! It is more various in its 
 features and more striking in the result, because the trade is more 
 extensive, and employs both larger capitals and a more numerous 
 people. One gentleman tells you that he has twenty, another twenty-
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES. 229 
 
 five thousand pounds locked up in unsaleable, unprofitable stock, 
 which load his warehouses. A third has about thirty, arid a fourth 
 no less than ninety thousand pounds thus disposed of. In the ware- 
 houses of one merchant there are eighty thousand pounds wortli of 
 cottons, and in those of another at Liverpool from two to three thou- 
 sand packages, chiefly woollens and cottons, valued on the lowest 
 computation at two hundred thousand pounds, every article of which 
 was destined for the American market, and can find no other vent. 
 In the West Riding, thousands have been thrown out of all employ- 
 ment but this is nothing compared with the fearful apprehensions 
 which are there entertained, if you this night refuse them relief. I 
 pass lightly over this ground but the fact is known that in that po- 
 pulous county, the applications to the parish officers have so alarm- 
 ingly increased, that they have given repeated warnings to the master 
 manufacturers, and I believe to the higher authorities, of their utter 
 inability to relieve the increasing distress or to answer for its conse- 
 quences. Among other circumstances which marked this part of the 
 case, there was one peculiarly affecting to every one who heard it. 
 It had been proved that at Kidderminster, where the great carpet 
 manufacture is almost entirely destroyed, the wants of the poor be- 
 came so pressing that they were forced to part with their little stock 
 of furniture, which used to make their cottages in some degree com- 
 fortable, and even the clothes of! their backs, to raise food, until the 
 pawnbrokers, having already loaded themselves with such deposits, 
 refused to issue any more tickets. But at Sheffield, the same feature 
 recurred in an heightened and still more striking form. The work- 
 men in the cutlery trade, unable to obtain any longer their usual 
 market, from the master dealers and merchants or brokers refusing to 
 purchase any more, were compelled to pawn their articles at a very 
 low valuation, for money, and even for food and clothes so that this 
 extraordinary state of things arose the pawnbrokers came into the 
 London market with the goods, and there met the regular dealers, 
 whom they were able greatly to undersell; in such wise as to supply 
 in a considerable degree the London and other markets, to the ex- 
 treme augmentation of the distresses already so severely pressing 
 upon this branch of trade. 
 
 I might detain you, sir, in an endless repetition of this same tale of 
 misery, through its different shapes, were I to describe its varieties in 
 the other districts to which the evidence applies but I shall only 
 refer to the Cotton trade; and that, not for the sake of stating that 
 here too the same picture was presented of capital locked up men 
 of great nominal wealth living without income trading, or seeming 
 to trade, without profits numberless workmen dismissed those who 
 remain employed earning only half or quarter wages parish rates 
 increasing charitable supplies failing, from the reduced means of the 
 upper classes, and the hourly augmented claims upon their bounty 
 and the never-ceasing feature of this case in all its parts, the impend- 
 ing necessity of instantaneously disbanding those who are only now 
 retained in the hopes of your favourable decision; but I would draw 
 VOL. i. 20
 
 230 ORDERS IX COUNCIL. 
 
 your attention to the Cotton districts, merely to present one incidental 
 circumstance which chanced to transpire respecting the distresses of the 
 poor in those parts. The food which now sustains them is reduced 
 to the lowest kind, and of that there is not nearly a sufficient supply; 
 bread, or even potatoes, are now out of the question; the luxuries of 
 animal food, or even milk, they have long ceased to think of. Their 
 looks, as well as their apparel, proclaim the sad change in their situa- 
 tion. One witness tells you, it is only necessary to look at their hag- 
 gard faces, to be satisfied what they are suffering; another says that 
 persons who have recently returned, after an absence of some months 
 from those parts, declare themselves shocked, and unable to recognise 
 the people whom they had left. A gentleman largely concerned in 
 the Cotton trade, to whose respectability ample testimony was borne 
 by an honorable Baronet* I cannot regularly name him but in a 
 question relating to the Cotton trade, it is natural to think of the house 
 of Peel that gentleman whose property in part consists of cottages 
 and little pieces of ground let out to work-people, told us that lately 
 he went to look after his rents and when he entered those dwellings, 
 and found them so miserably altered so stript of their wonted fur- 
 niture and other little comforts and when he saw their inhabitants 
 sitting down to a scanty dinner of oatmeal and water, their only meal 
 in the four-and-twenty hours, he could not stand the sight, and" came 
 away unable to ask his rent. These feelings so honorable to him 
 so painful to us who partook of them were not confined to that 
 respectable witness. We had other sights to endure in that long and 
 dismal inquiry. Masters came forward to tell us how unhappy it 
 made them to have no more work to give their poor men, because all 
 their money, and in some cases their credit too, was already gone in 
 trying to support them. Some had involved themselves in embarrass- 
 ments for such pious purposes. One again, would describe his misery 
 at turning off people whom he and his father had employed for many 
 years. Another would say how he dreaded the coming round of 
 Saturday when he had to pay his hands their reduced wages, incapa- 
 ble of supporting them; how he kept out of their way on that day, 
 and made his foreman pay them. While a third would say that he 
 was afraid to see his people, because he had no longer the means of 
 giving them work, and he knew that they would flock round him and 
 implore to be employed at the lowest wages; for something wholly 
 insufficient to feed them. Indeed, said one, our situation is greatly to 
 be pitied: it is most distressing, and God only knows what will become 
 of us, for it is most unhappy! These things, and a vast deal more 
 a vast deal which I will not attempt to go through, because I abso- 
 lutely have not the heart to bear it, and I cannot do it these things, 
 and much more of the same melancholy description, may be seen in the 
 minutes by such as did not attend the committee; or as far as I have 
 been able to represent them, they may be understood by those who 
 have not heard the evidence. But there were things seen in the com- 
 
 * Sir R. Peel.
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES. 231 
 
 mittee which cannot be entered on its records; which were not spoken 
 in words, and could not be written down; which I should in vain, 
 attempt to paint which to form any idea of, you must have been 
 present, and seen and heard. For I cannot describe to you the man- 
 ner in which that affecting evidence was given. I cannot tell you 
 with what tones and looks of distress it was accompanied. \Vhen 
 the witnesses told the story of the sufferings of their work-people and 
 their own sufferings on their account, there was something in it which 
 all the powers of acting could not even imitate; it was something 
 which to feel as I now feel it, you must have seen it as I saw. The 
 men to whom I am now alluding belonged to the venerable Society 
 of Friends that amiable body of persons the friends indeed of all 
 that is most precious to man the distinguished advocates of humanity, 
 justice, and peace, and the patterns, as well as promoters of all the 
 kindest charities of our nature. In their manner of testifying to this 
 cause, there was something so simple and so touching, that it disarmed 
 for a season the habitual indignation of the learned father of the 
 system,* and seemed to thaw the cold calculations of its foster parent,t 
 and his followers of the Board of Trade and Shipping Interest. J 
 
 Sir, there is one circumstance in these melancholy details, which I 
 have refrained from touching upon, because it seemed always to 
 excite a peculiar degree of soreness; I mean the scarcity. We have 
 often been taunted with this topic. We have been triumphantly 
 asked, " What! is the scarcity too, owing to the Orders in Council?" 
 Certainly we never thought of ascribing the wet summer, and the 
 bad crop, to the present commercial system; but as for scarcity, I 
 imagine there may be two kinds of it equally inconvenient to the 
 people a scarcity of food, and a scarcity of money to buy food with. 
 All the witnesses whom we examined, were, without exception, asked 
 this question, " Do you recollect the scarcity of 1SOO or 1S01?" Yes, 
 was the answer, " we do remember it; the dearth was then great, 
 greater than at present, for there were two failing crops." But when 
 we asked, whether the distress was as great, they Hung up their 
 hands and exclaimed " nothing like it, for then the people had 
 plenty of work and full wages, whereas now the want of money 
 meets the want of food." But further, sir, have you not taken away 
 the only remedy for this scarcity the only relief to which we can 
 look under a had harvest by closing the corn market of America? 
 Did we not always say, in arguing upon these measures prospectively; 
 "Whore are you if a bad season comes, and there is a risk of a 
 famine?" Well unhappily this calamity has come, or approaches; 
 the season is bad, and a famine stares us in the face, and now we say 
 as we did he In re "Where are you with your Orders in Council, and 
 your American quarrel?" Why, sir, to deny that those measures 
 affect the scarcity, is as absurd as it would be to deny that our Jesuit's 
 bark bill exasperated the misery of the French hospitals, for that the 
 wretches there died of the ague and not of the bill. True, they died 
 
 * Mr. Stephen. j Mr. Rose. J Mr. Marryatt, &c.
 
 232 ORDERS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 of the ague: but your murderous policy withheld from them that 
 kindly herb which the providence that mysteriously inflicted the 
 disease, mercifully bestowed for the relief of suffering humanity. 
 
 Before I quit this subject, let me entreat of the House to reflect 
 how it bears upon the operations now carrying on in the Peninsula. 
 Our armies there are fed from America; supplies to the amount of 
 eight or nine millions a-year, are derived by them from thence; the 
 embargo t'other day raised the price of flour in the Lisbon market 
 above fifty per cent.; and when the news of this advance reached 
 London, you heard from one witness that it occasioned in one morning, 
 within his own knowledge, an export from this port of six thousand 
 barrels of flour to supply the Portuguese market. Our operations in 
 Spain and Portugal then depend upon the intercourse with America, 
 and yet we madly persist in cutting that intercourse off! And is it 
 indeed come to this? Are we never to lose sight of the Spanish war, 
 except when America is concerned? To that contest what sacrifices 
 have we not cheerfully made? To its paramount importance what 
 perpetual tribute have we not been paying? Has it not for years 
 been the grand object of our hopes as of our efforts; the centre upon 
 which all our politics, external and domestic, have hinged; the point 
 which regulated everything, from the negotiation of a public treaty 
 to the arrangement of a cabinet? Upon this contest what millions 
 of money, what profusion of British blood have we not lavished 
 without ever stopping to count the cost, so self-evident have we ever 
 deemed its advantages or rather its necessity to be? Yet now are we 
 prepared to abandon it to sacrifice all our hopes of its future profit 
 to throw away every advance that we have already made upon it, 
 because it can no longer be prosecuted without involving us in the 
 cost and dangers of a reconciliation with America! For this war, 
 for this same bootless war, we hesitate not to neglect every interest, 
 every domestic tie to cripple, oppress, starve, and grind down our 
 own people; but all attention to it, all thought of it, suddenly leaves 
 us the moment we ascertain that, in order to carry it on, we must 
 abandon an unjust and ruinous quarrel with our kinsmen in America, 
 and speedily relieve the unparralleled distresses of our own country- 
 men! Now, and now only, and for this reason and none other, we 
 must give up for ever the cherished object of all our hopes, and no 
 longer even dream of opposing any resistance to France upon the 
 continent of Europe because by continuing to do so we should 
 effectually defeat her machinations in America! 
 
 I have now, sir, slightly and generally touched upon the heads of 
 that case of deep distress which the evidence presents to our view; 
 and I here stop to demand by what proofs this evidence has been met 
 on the other side of the House? Not a question did the honorable 
 gentlemen, who defend the system, venture to put by way of shaking 
 the testimony, the clear and united testimony to which I have been 
 alluding; not a witness did they call on their part with the view of 
 rebutting it, save only one, and to this one person's evidence it is 
 necessary that I should call your attention, because from a particular
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES. 233 
 
 circumstance it does so happen that it will not be found upon the 
 minutes, and can therefore only be known to those who heaid it, by 
 whom, I well know, it never can be forgotten. This man, whom I 
 will not name, having denied that any great distress prevailed among 
 the lower orders in the manufacturing districts, it was fit that I should 
 examine him a little more closely, seeing that he took upon himself to 
 contradict the statement unanimously given by the most respectable 
 merchants and manufacturers in the country but a few days before. 
 I therefore asked whether he meant to say, that the artisans had 
 the same wages as usual And then was disclosed a scene the most 
 revolting, the most disgusting, that it is possible to conceive, insomuch, 
 indeed, that I was immediately afterwards implored by the gentlemen 
 opposite to allow the evidence to be expunged, that it might not 
 remain on our journals to defile them. This man in substance told 
 us, that the people had enough of wages that they had no right to 
 more that when their wages were at the former rate they had three 
 times as much as they ought to have! What? did he really dare to 
 say that the food which lie had heard with sorrow described by the 
 Lancashire witnesses was enough for the support of Englishmen, or 
 that this miserable fare was all that the lower people of this country 
 have a right to the lower people to whom we owe all our national 
 greatness? Did he venture to tell the representatives of that people 
 us who are sent here by them who meet here only to consult for 
 their interests who only exist by and for them that a short allow- 
 ance of oatmeal and water (for such is the fact) was the fit fare for 
 them?* Sir, this man sprung, I make no doubt, himself from the 
 same class of the community, and at any rate now became by their 
 labour, I am ashamed to say, one of the most affluent merchants in the 
 city of London this loyal man, for he began his evidence with an 
 attack upon Jacobinism, and imputed the present distresses to the 
 seditious machinations of partymen in this town, I rather think he 
 meant to insinuate in this house an attack which was also ordered 
 to be expunged from the minutes this very person standing in this 
 Commons House of Parliament was shameless enough to insinuate 
 that Englishmen must be fed low to keep them quiet; for he distinctly 
 stated, that if you gave them more, you pampered them, or as he 
 termed it, accustomed them to ''luxuries irrelevant to their condition," 
 and unhinged (as he phrased it in the jargon of his loyalty) " unhinged 
 the frame of society." Sir, I yielded to the united entreaties of the 
 gentlemen opposite, and for the sake of peace and the credit of our 
 records, I consented to this disgraceful evidence being expunged. I 
 now repent me of what I did; for I ought rather to have suffered the 
 contamination to remain that it might record by what sort of witnesses 
 this system is upheld, and according to what standard of popular 
 rights and national happiness the defence of the syetem is framed. 
 So much, however, for the first and last attempt which was made to 
 impeach the facts brought forward by my witnesses. 
 
 * See evidence of Mr. Wood, Mr. Bentlcy, &c. 
 20*
 
 234 ORDERS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Driven from this ground, then, the right honorable gentleman 
 retreats to his well known hold, and takes refuge in the Custom-house 
 books In the accounts of the Inspector General. I could have 
 wished that he had brought that worthy and respectable officer him- 
 self to the bar, because then we might have learned more accurately 
 how those returns are made up; at present we have only a meagre 
 note of a few lines describing the errors of this proceeding. But, 
 with respect to these returns I must in the first place observe, that we 
 cannot in this stage of the inquiry rely on such evidence; the period 
 is gone by when they might have been admissible. I shall explain 
 myself in a moment upon this point. Accounts of exports and imports 
 are resorted to, and most properly, in order to estimate the trade of the 
 country when we have no better data; because those accounts give 
 something like an approximation or rough guess at the state of the 
 trade, and are in ordinary cases the only means we have of getting at 
 a knowledge of the state of the country in point of commercial pros- 
 perity. But when we know from other sources of the most unques- 
 tioned authority everything relating to this very point when we 
 have by actual inquiry learned in what state the commerce of the 
 country is when we have gone to the fountain head and seen the 
 situation of things with our own eyes it is idle and preposterous to run 
 after lists of exports and imports which are only the less perfect evi- 
 dence the indirect sign or symptom, and utterly out of time after we 
 have examined the thing itself. We have seen that people are starving 
 all over the manufacturing districts, and the master manufacturers 
 ruined; after this to produce an array of Custom-house figures, for 
 the purpose of showing whether manufactures are flourishing or not, 
 is stark nonsense such an array is superfluous, if it coincides with the 
 better proofs, if it contradicts them, what man alive will listen to them 
 for one moment? But I confess, sir, that with me, at any stage of the 
 inquiry, the credit of those Custom-house tables would be but small, 
 after the account of them which appears in evidence. The Inspector 
 himself has stated in his memorandum, that the method of making up 
 the account of exports cannot be safely relied upon, in those instances 
 where no payment is made; and by one of the returns it appears, that of 
 twenty-seven millions, the average yearly value of exports, only ten 
 millions are subject to duty on exportation, and that above eight mil- 
 lions neither pay duty, nor receive bounty or drawback; upon this sum 
 at least, then, all the inaccuracy admitted in this minute must attach. 
 But the evidence sufficiently explains on which side of the scale the 
 error is likely to lie: There is, it would seem, a fellow-feeling between 
 the gentlemen at the Custom-house and their honoured masters at the 
 Board of Trade; so that when the latter wish to make blazing state- 
 ments of national prosperity, the former are ready to find the fuel. 
 The managing clerk of one of the greatest mercantile houses in the 
 city, tells you that he has known packages entered at 5,000 which 
 were not worth 50; that those sums are entered at random, and can- 
 not be at all relied upon. Other witnesses, particularly from Liver- 
 pool, confirm the same fact; and I know, as does my right honorable
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES. 235 
 
 friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was present, that the 
 head of the same respectable house, a few days ago mentioned at an 
 official conference with him, an instance of his own clerks being 
 desired at the Custom-house to make a double entry of an article for 
 export. After such facts as these, I say it is in vain to talk of Custom- 
 house returns, even if they were contradicted in no respect by other 
 evidence. After showing one such flaw in them, I am absolved 
 from all further trouble; I am not bound to follow their details and 
 prove them false step by step; I have shown enough to destroy their 
 credit as documents, and with this irreparable damage on their face, 
 I might here leave them. But strange to tell, after all the boasting of 
 the gentlemen opposite in spite of every contrivance to conceal the 
 real fact and notwithstanding the essentially vicious mode of pre- 
 paring those docments, it does so happen, that the falling off in our 
 trade is too great even for the machinery of the Custom-house to sustain, 
 or cover it over; and with every effort to prevent its appearance, here 
 it breaks out upon the face of the Custom-house papers themselves! 
 At first, the methods I have spoken of were, no doubt, successful. 
 When the defalcation was confined within certain limiis, those 
 methods might conceal it, and enable the ministers to delude this 
 house and the country, with details of our flourishing commerce. But 
 that point has been passed, and no resources of official skill can any 
 more suppress the melancholy truth, that the trade of the country has 
 gone to decay. I hold in my hand the latest of these annual returns; 
 and by its details we find that, comparing the whole amount of trade, 
 both exports and imports (which is the only fair way of reckoning), 
 in 1809, with its amount in 1S11, there is a falling off in the latter 
 year to the amount of no less than thirty-six millions compared 
 with 1810, the falling off is thirty-eight millions. If we confine our 
 view only to the export of British manufactures, we find that the 
 falling off in 1811, as compared with either of the former years, (for 
 they are nearly equal,) amounts to sixteen millions. And if we take 
 in the export of foreign and colonial produce also, the falling off in 
 1811, compared with 1S09, is twenty-four, and compared with 
 1810,no less than twenty-seven millions! Then, sir, we need not 
 object that the evidence afforded by those papers they make most 
 strongly in favor of our argument they are evidence for us, if any 
 evidence from such a quarter were wanted and whatever credit 
 you may give to the testimony by which I have been impeaching their 
 authenticity how little soever you may be inclined to agree with 
 rnc in doubting their accuracy, and in imputing exaggeration to them 
 I care not even if you should wholly deny that any such flaws are 
 to be found in their construction, and that any such abatement as I 
 have described is to be made from their total results; I say, corrected 
 or uncorrected. they prove my case and I now rely on them, and 
 hold them up in refutation of the Board of Trade, because they dis- 
 tinctly demonstrate an immense, an unparalleled diminution in our 
 commerce, during the last eighteen months, and wholly coincide with 
 both our evidence and our argument.
 
 236 ORDERS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Of the positions advanced by the defenders of this system, one of 
 the most noted is, that what we may have lost by its operation in 
 one quarter, we have gained elsewhere and that if the United 
 States are no longer open to us, we have extended our trade in the 
 other parts of America, and in some new European channels. To 
 this argument, however, the returns which I have just been dwelling 
 upon furnish a most triumphant, if it were not rather a melancholy 
 answer. For you will observe, sir, that Ihe mighty falling off, which 
 those accounts exhibit, is upon the whole trade of the country that 
 it includes South America, Heligoland, the Baltic, and the Mediter- 
 ranean, as well as the United States, and the dominions of France. 
 If, therefore, upon the whole, trade there has been this great defalca- 
 tion, it is idle to talk of compensation and substitutes. The balance 
 is struck the deficiency is proved, after all the substitutes have been 
 taken into the account, and credit has been given for them all. Every 
 such allowance being fully made, there is still a total loss of trade in 
 one year to the enormous amount of eight and thirty millions sterling. 
 In like manner do these returns dispose of another "famous argument 
 that the deficit of last year is only apparent; that it arises from 
 making a comparison with 1810, the greatest year ever known; but 
 that, compared with former years, there was no fulling off at all. 
 What now becomes of this assertion? The falling off in the last 
 year, as compared with 1810, being thirty-seven millions; it is thirty- 
 five, as compared with 1S09: and the deficit of exports of British 
 manufactures is very nearly the same in both those comparisons. So 
 much for the assertions of honorable gentlemen, and the real results 
 of the Custom-house documents. 
 
 But let us attend a little more closely to the much boasted substi- 
 tutes for our American trade, which are to be found in the Spanish 
 and Portuguese colonies in the south, and in our own settlements in 
 the north. Almost all the witnesses who were examined knew some- 
 thing of these branches of commerce; and it was the constant practice 
 on this side of the House to ask them, how far they had found relief 
 from them? We generally began with inquiring, whether they had 
 tried the South American markets? and there was always the same 
 sort of answer: it was in most cases given with an air and manner 
 sufficiently significant, independent of the words; there was generally 
 a something which I should distinguish by a foreign expression, if I 
 might be permitted to use it, where we have none at home that will 
 convey the meaning a sort of naivete an arch and humorous sim- 
 plicity, which some now present must recollect. "Try the South 
 American market? Aye, that we have!" Or, "Know the Brazil 
 trade? We know it full well!" Some who had not personal expe- 
 rience of it., on being asked, " Whether they knew of any others who 
 had tried the South American trade?" said, " They never wished to 
 know any such people, or to have anything to do with them." 
 Most of them told us, that their diappointments were owing to Sir 
 Home Popham's circular: and when we desired explanation, and 
 demanded what profits they had turned on those adventures, whether
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES. 237 
 
 twenty or only ten per cent. they said they had always lost fifty or 
 sixty, or more in the hundred; and never sold for prime cost; fre- 
 quently abandoning the goods to their fate, to save further charges in 
 inquiring after them. Thus much appeared when /examined them; 
 being myself no trader, I could only question them generally and 
 differently: accordingly, in my hands, they came off easily and safely 
 enough not so when the Vice-President of the Board of Trade took 
 up the tale, which he never failed to do as soon as I laid it down. 
 Then was seen all the closeness of a practical scrutineer; he took 
 them to task as a real merchant, dealer and chapman; he spoke to 
 them in their own language, and rated them in a manner so alarming 
 to them but to my honorable friend* and myself so amusing, that 
 even now it is some merriment to recollect the dialogue: " What!" 
 he would say, "did you suffer a loss from the great South American 
 market?" " Yes," was the answer, " a loss of fifty or sixty per cent." 
 " Indeed," said the oracle of trade, sharply enough, -' why, what sort 
 of cargoes did you send?" "Woollens," they would answer, "or 
 flannels, or calicoes," as ihe case might be: ' Woollens," he would 
 reply, " why, how could you think of such a thing? Woollens! no 
 wonder that you lost." So that all comes of their bad trading, and 
 not of the bad market. "While you are left to yourselves," says 
 the right honourable gentleman, "no wonder that you make a losing 
 speculation of it: What can your ordinary traders know of such fine 
 markets as our South Sea bubble? Come to us repair to our Board 
 of Trade let us assort your cargoes take a hint from my noble 
 colleague in tradet and me, who carry on the commerce of the coun- 
 try Come to the license shop, and we will teach you the sure way 
 not perhaps of making a profit, for in these times that is not to be 
 expected but of reducing your losses, so that you shall only lose 
 thirty or perhaps not more than twenty per cent, on each adventure!" 
 But grant that these merchants have really mistaken the right 
 honourable gentleman's grand market, and have not exactly hit upon 
 the articles that suit it; is it nothing against this new market that 
 none of the real traders nobody but Lord Bathurst, and his Board 
 in Downing-street, can find out what things answer for it? Is cer- 
 tainty and steadiness no longer a desirable quality in trade? Are we 
 to value commerce for its changeableness? Is variety now the great 
 beauty of traffic? Is that line of employment for capital to be pre- 
 ferred which gives the most precarious returns, where the hazards 
 are the greatest, and the obstacles the most difficult? as if the mer- 
 chant was in search of amusement, or of that kind of unnatural 
 delight which gamesters arc said to take, in the risks and dangers of 
 their unworthy occupation? Really, sir, I speak as one ignorant of 
 the subject, practically; I am not like the gentlemen of the Board, 
 an adept in the mysteries of commerce; but from everything I had 
 heard, I did imagine that there was some merit in the old-fashioned 
 qualities which were conceived foolishly I imagine, and ignorantly, 
 
 * Mr. Baring. } Lord Bathurst.
 
 238 ORDERS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 to distinguish a good market, and that it was nothing the worse for 
 being accessible plain enough to enable traders to find out. what 
 suited it large enough not to be soon glutted regular enough to be 
 confided in more years than one and gainful enough to yield some 
 little profit, and not a large loss upon each adventure. 
 
 Then comes the other great substitute, the market of British North 
 America, and here the same proofs of a complete glut are to be found 
 in every part of the evidence. At first, indeed, when the people of 
 the United Stales did not go hand in hand with the government, and 
 unwillingly supported, or endeavoured to evade the prohibitory laws, 
 it was found easy to smuggle in our goods through Canada, to a con- 
 siderable amount. But tin's outlet too we have now taken especial 
 care to close up, by persisting in the same measures which rendered 
 such a roundabout trade necessary, until we exasperated the people 
 of the United States as well as their government, and enabled the 
 latter to take whatever steps might be requisite for completing the 
 exclusion of our trade those measures have been adopted the 
 contraband in Canada is at an end, and there is no longer that vent 
 in British North America, which the Board fondly imagined it had 
 so slily provided for our commerce; a vent which, at the best, must 
 have been a most wretched compensation for the loss of the American 
 traffic, in its direct and full course. 
 
 But, sir, we are talking of substitutes; and I must here ask how 
 much of the South American or European trade is really a substitute 
 for that of the United States? because, unless it is strictly speaking 
 so substituted in its place, that it would be destroyed were the North 
 American trade restored, no possible argument can be drawn from its 
 amount, against the measures which I now recommend for regaining 
 the market of the United States. It is pretended that the export to 
 North America used to be much greater than the consumption of that 
 country, and that a large part of it was ultimately destined for the 
 consumption of South America and the West Indies; from whence 
 the inference is drawn, that as we now supply those markets directly, 
 the opening of the North American market would not be so large an 
 increase as is supposed. The fact is quite otherwise. It is proved in 
 evidence by a respectable witness* who has resided for years in 
 America, and by the official returns before Congress, that not above 
 a thirteenth in value of the amount of the goods sent from this country 
 to the United States, is in the whole re-exported to South America 
 and the West Indies; and of this not above a half can be British 
 manufacture. There will only be then a diminution of half a million 
 in the export to North America from this cause, and that must have 
 been much more than supplied by the increase of the North American 
 market since the trade was stopt. So too the markets of Brazil, and 
 of Spain and Portugal, which are spoken of as substitutes for our 
 North American commerce, will most unquestionably continue as at 
 present after that commerce shall have been restored. All the deduc- 
 
 * Mr. P. C. White.
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES. 239 
 
 tions (hat we have any right to make are too contemptible to be 
 mentioned. No proof is offered or even attempted to be given, that 
 these protended substitutes, are in fact substitutes; that they would 
 not conliuue to exist in their present extent afier the revival of the 
 branches in the place of which they are absurdly said to be substi- 
 tuted. Therefore I need not argue as to the extent or the excellence 
 of these new markets. Be they ever so valuable be they as fine as 
 the Vice-President and his Board can dream of, my argument is not 
 touched by them, until it be shown, that we must lose them by restor- 
 ing our intercourse with the United States. 
 
 Since the pressure then which the loss of our foreign trade has 
 occasioned, have we discovered in the course of the inquiry any relief? 
 The gentlemen opposite eagerly fly to the home market; and here 
 their disappointment is, I grieve to say, speedy and signal. On this 
 branch of the question the evidence is most striking and harmonious. 
 In all the trades which we examined, it appeared that the home 
 market was depressed in an unexampled degree. And this effect has 
 been produced in two ways. Goods destined for the foreign market, 
 no longer finding that vent, have been naturally thrown more or less 
 into the home market, so as to glut, or at least greatly overstock it. 
 And again, those places which depended for part of their support 
 upon the foreign market, have been so crippled by the loss of it, that 
 their consumption of articles of comfort and luxury has been mate- 
 rially contracted. This is remarkably illustrated in the evidence re- 
 specting the cutlery trade; which, from the nature of its articles, is 
 peculiarly calculated to explain both the circumstances I have alluded 
 to. Not only do the dealers in that line find the home market unusu- 
 ally loaded with their goods, but they tell you that they find a much 
 smaller demand than formerly for those goods, in all places which 
 used to be engaged in the American trade. Evidence of the same 
 kind is to be found touching another article of luxury, or at least 
 comfort, the Kidderminster manufactory; and the respectable and 
 intelligent witnesses from Spitalfields explained fully how the diminu- 
 tion of their staple manufacture, from what causes soever arising, 
 never failed to affect all the other branches of industry in that district, 
 down to the bricklayer and common day-labourer. It must be so; the 
 distribution of wealth, the close connection and mutual dependency 
 of the various branches of industry, will not permit it to be otherwise. 
 
 While I am speaking of the home trade, sir, I must call your 
 attention in passing, to one species of relief which is more apparent 
 than real, arising to that branch of our commerce out of the war and 
 its expenditure. It is certain that at present a great part of the trade 
 which remains to us is not a regular, lucrative, and if I may so speak, 
 wholesome and natural trade but a mere transference of money 
 from the tax-payer through the tax-gatherer to the manufacturer or 
 merchant a mere result of the operations of supply within this 
 House, and the operations of war out of it. I speak now, not only 
 of the three millions a year paid to the shipping interest for the trans- 
 port service nor of the vast amount of our expenditure in the
 
 240 ORDERS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Peninsula and Mediterranean; which delusively augment by many 
 millions the apparent exports of the country, but I will take an instance 
 from the evidence and the papers on your table, and it shall be from 
 Birmingham. Half of the trade there being now gone, there remains 
 a manufacture, we are told, of goods to the amount of 1,200,000/. a 
 year, for home consumption. But this home consumption includes 
 the demand of that great and extravagant consumer the government. 
 The Ordnance accounts show that above 700,000/. are paid in one 
 year for gun and pistol barrels made at Birmingham; so that only half 
 a million is the real and genuine extent of the remaining manufacture. 
 The rest no doubt relieves the manufacturers and workmen, but it is 
 a relief at the expense of the other members of the community; and 
 the expense goes to feed the war to support soldiers and sailors, 
 who in return, though doubtless they perform great and precious ser- 
 vices to the country, yet do not at all contribute to augment its wealth, 
 or maintain its revenues, as workmen and peasants would do if the 
 same sums were expended upon them. A similar observation may 
 be applied to the expenses of clothing the Army and Navy. In 
 Yorkshire, and some parts of Scotland, these demands have been 
 found to constitute the bulk of the remaining trade. Their amount I 
 know not with any accuracy, as the returns which I moved for are 
 not yet produced; but it is easy to conjecture that six or seven hundred 
 thousand men cannot be clothed at a very small expense. All these 
 demands must be deducted from the account, if we wish to exhibit 
 a fair view of the actual state of our manufactures. 
 
 Suffer me, sir, before leaving this part of the subject, to state a 
 circumstance connected with the Home trade, which is peculiarly 
 striking, arid argues to show clearly, that things are in such a state 
 that any relief obtained in one quarter must be at the expense of 
 another. In the clothing districts, it was stated that about a year and 
 a half ago, a considerable extension of trade had been experienced in 
 many branches; and no sooner was the circumstance mentioned than 
 the Vice-President's countenance brightened up, as if he had at length 
 begun to see daylight, and the tide was really turning in his favour: so 
 he greedily pursued the inquiry. It turned out, however, that this 
 relief, (and it was the only one of which we met with any trace during 
 our whole investigation) was owing to a change of fashions, which 
 about that time was introduced, the ladies having taken to wearing 
 cloth pelisses during that winter. But soon after came the sequel of 
 the same tale; for we were examining the Spitalfields weavers on 
 some other points, and upon their stating that they were never so 
 badly off as about a year and a half ago, we inquired to what this 
 was owing, and it turned out that it rose entirely from the change of 
 fashions among the ladies, who no longer wore silk pelisses. Thus 
 the clothiers were relieved entirely at the expense of the weavers, and 
 the only instance which this long and various inquiry affords of the 
 universal sufferings being interrupted by any more favourable events 
 the only diminution to the distresses that is anywhere to be met 
 with is one which increases those miseries precisely in the same
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES. 241 
 
 degree in some other quarter, equally deserving our protection and 
 our pity. 
 
 But there is one ground which the advocates of the system always 
 retreat to, when they are driven out of the facts, and find themselves 
 unable either to deny the miseries which their projects have occasioned, 
 or to contend that there are any practicable means of relief. They 
 allow that our commerce is destroyed they admit that the people are 
 impoverished but there are other considerations, they contend, which 
 a great nation should entertain there are more valuable possessions 
 than trade and wealth and we are desired to consider the dignity 
 and honour of the country. Sir, there is no man within these walls to 
 whom such an appeal could be made with more effect than to him. 
 who is now addressing you. Let it but be shown to me that our 
 national honour is at stake that it is involved in this system nay that 
 it touches it in any one point and my opposition from that moment 
 is at an end only prove to me, that although our trade is gone, or 
 turned into confined, uncertain and suspicious channels although 
 our manufacturers are ruined and our people starving yet all these 
 sacrifices and sufferings are necessary for our character and name 
 I shall be the first to proclaim that they are necessary and must be 
 borne, because I shall ever be the foremost to acknowledge that honour 
 is power and substantial inheritance to a great people, and that public 
 safety is incompatible with degradation. Let me but see how the 
 preservation of our maritime rights, paramount as I hold them to 
 every oilier consideration, is endangered by the repeal of the Orders 
 in Council and I sit down and hold my peace. But I now urge you 
 to that repeal, because I hold it most conscientiously to be, not inju- 
 rious, but essential to the preservation and stability of those rights, and 
 of the naval power which protects them; and I must therefore crave 
 your leave to step aside for a while from the details in which I have 
 been engaged, in order to remove, as I well know I speedily can, all 
 idea of the necessity of the Orders in Council to the security of our 
 naval rights. This explanation is due both to the question itself, to 
 the numerous parties who are now in breathless anxiety awaiting its 
 decision, and if I may presume to say so, to my own principles and 
 character. 
 
 On the foundation of our pretensions as at the present time urged I 
 am loth to enter, because, whether they are just or not, according to 
 my view of the question, the maintaining or abandoning of them, even 
 of the most untenable among them, is quite foreign to this discussion. 
 I will not, therefore, stop to examine the value, or the justice of our 
 claim to unlimited blockade what is significantly termed paper 
 blockade. I might ask since when this has been introduced or sanc- 
 tioned by even our own courts of public laws? I might refer you 
 to the beginning of last war, when our commanders in the West Indies 
 having declared the ports of Murtinico under blockade, the highest 
 authority in matters of prize, the Lords of Appeal, without hesitation 
 decided this blockade to be contrary to the law of nations, and refused 
 to support it. But as my argument requires no such position, as it 
 
 VOL. I. 21
 
 242 ORDERS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 leads me quite clear of this question, I wish not to embarrass myself 
 at all with it, and I will freely grant everything that can be asked 
 upon the question of right. I will admit that we have a right to 
 blockade, by a few lines in the Gazette, whole islands, coasts, con- 
 tinents, nay, the entire world and all its harbours, without sending a 
 single sloop of war to enforce the order. This admission, I should 
 think, is sufficient to satisfy the most blockading appetite in the House, 
 though I perceive, by the smile of distrust on the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer's countenance, that it falls short of his notions. I will also 
 pass over the still more material question, how far we have a right to 
 blockade, for purposes not belligerent but mercantile, that is, to exclude 
 neutrals from trading with our enemy, not with the view of reducing 
 that enemy to submission, and terminating the contest more speedily, 
 for the general good, but upon the speculation of stunting the enemy's 
 trade and encouraging our own. Lastly, I shall say nothing of the 
 most obvious of all these questions how far have we a right to 
 blockade the enemy, and exclude the neutral, for the purpose of break- 
 ing our own blockade and engrossing the trade with the enemy, from 
 which we keep the neutral out a question ably stated the first time I 
 had the honour of bringing forward this subject, by a right honourable 
 gentleman on the opposite side.* All these questions I pass from, 
 however strong my opinion may be upon some of them; and I do not 
 even stop to show what the evidence does at every step substantiate, 
 that the Orders in Council do in no respect tend to secure any one even, 
 of those pretended advantages for our own trade over the enemy's; 
 but I hasten to grapple with the substance of the argument on the 
 other side, by which the Orders in Council are connected with these 
 maritime rights, all of which I am now admitting. It is said, that if 
 we repeal those Orders, and waive or relinquish for the present and 
 for our own evident advantage, the rights on which they are founded, 
 then we sacrifice those rights for ever, and can never again, happen 
 what may, enforce them. Is it really so, sir? Then woe betide us 
 and our rights! for which of all our maritime rights have we not at 
 one time or another relinquished? Free ships make free goods, says 
 the enemy, and so say many other powers. This we strenuously deny, 
 and we deem our denial the very corner-stone of our maritime system. 
 Yet at the peace of Utrecht we gave it up, after a war of unexampled 
 success, a series of uninterrupted triumphs, in which our power was 
 extended, and France and her allies humiliated. The famous rule of 
 the war of 1756, has had the same fate that principle out of which 
 the Orders in Council unquestionably sprung. The name by which 
 it is known shows that it is but a modern invention; buf it seems to 
 have been waived or relinquished almost as soon as it was discovered; 
 for in the American war it was given up, not only in practice, but by 
 repeated decisions in our Prize Courts: I allude especially to the well 
 known judgments of Sir James Marriott upon this point. In the last 
 war it was also departed from, by express acts of the government in 
 
 * Mr. Canning.
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES. 243 
 
 1793 and 1794; yet, by a strange coincidence, the very person who 
 now tells us that to refrain from forcing a right and to abandon it 
 forever, are one and the same thing, was he who contributed more 
 than any other man to revive the rule of the war of 1756; he who 
 gave to the world an able and learned work, certainly, but one which 
 I deeply lament ever saw the light, I mean the tract known by the 
 name of " War in Disguise." Another, and, in my opinion by far 
 the most valuable of our maritime rights, is the right of search for 
 contraband of war; it is one of the most unquestionable, too, for it is 
 strictly a belligerent principle, lint have we invariably exercised it? 
 Nay, have we not offered to give it up? Recollect the first armed 
 neutrality, at the close of the American war; Mr. Fox was then en- 
 gaged in negotiating away this very right; and by a fatality as re- 
 markable as that which I have just spoken of, this very statesman (and 
 a grenter has never ruled in this kingdom, nor one more alive to the 
 true honour of his country) was the very man who first extended the 
 right of blockade, in May, 1S06; and his colleagues, regulated by his 
 principles, were the authors of the coasting blockade, the first step to 
 the famous Orders in Council. How, then, can any man, who has a 
 memory about him, pretend to tell us, that if we for a moment cease 
 to exercise those rights, we never can again enforce them, when you 
 find that we have not merely abstained from exercising, but actually 
 surrendered at different times all the maritime principles which we 
 now hold most sacred and most essential? Is it necessary always to 
 do a thing because you have the right to do it? Can a right not be 
 kept alive except by perpetually using it, whether hurtful or beneficial ? 
 You might just as well say, that because I may have a clear right of 
 way through my neighbour's close, therefore I must be eternally walk- 
 ing to and fro in the path, upon pain of losing my right should I ever 
 cease to perform this exercise. My honourable and learned friend* 
 would run up and tell me, if he saw me resting myself, or eating, or 
 sleeping, or walking to church, " Why, what are you about ? You 
 are leaving, relinquishing, abandoning your inviolable and undoubted 
 right; if you do not instantly return and constantly walk there, you 
 are an undone man." It is very possible that this may be destructive 
 of my comforts, nay, absolutely ruinous to me, but still I must walk, 
 or my right of way is gone. The path may lead to a precipice or a 
 coal-pit, where I may possibly break rny neck in groping after my 
 sacred rights. What then ? My grandchildren, long after I shall have 
 been destroyed in preserving tin's claim, may have to thank me for 
 some pleasant or profitable walk, which it secrns there was no other 
 way of keeping possession of but by my destruction. This is pre- 
 cisely the argument applied to the present question. I will maintain 
 that every right may safely be waived, or abandoned for reasons of 
 expediency, and resumed when those reasons cease. If it is other- 
 wise if a right must be exerted, whether beneficial or ruinous to him 
 who claims it, you abuse the language by calling it a right it becomes 
 
 * Mr. Stephen.
 
 244 ORDERS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 a duty, an obligation, a burthen. I say, if your interest requires the 
 relinquishment of the rights in question, abstain from enforcing them 
 give them up under protest do not abandon them do not yield 
 them in such a way that you may seem to acknowledge yourselves 
 in the wrong but with all the solemnities which can be devised, with 
 as many protestations and other formalities as the requisite number 
 of civilians can invent, state that you are pleased to waive the exercise 
 of the right for the present, or until further notice; and that for your 
 own interest, and with views of your own, you are content to refrain 
 from enforcing this chapter of the maritime code. Their brain must 
 be filled with whimsies, and not with ideas of right, who can imagine 
 that a conduct like this would place our pretensions in jeopardy, or 
 throw a single obstacle in the way of exerting on the morrow the 
 very same rights, of which next Saturday's Gazette should contain 
 the waiver. Always let it be remembered, that I ask no surrender, 
 no acknowledgment. I say keep fast hold of your rights on no 
 account yield them up but do not play the part of madness, and 
 insist on always using those rights even when their use will infallibly 
 work your ruin. 
 
 In entering, sir, upon the discussion of our maritime system, I 
 have been drawn aside from the course of my statement respecting 
 the importance of the commerce which we are sacrificing to those 
 pure whimsies, I can call them nothing else, respecting our abstract 
 rights. That commerce is the whole American market a branch of 
 trade in comparison of which, whether you regard its extent, its cer- 
 tainty, or its progressive increase, every other sinks into insignificance. 
 It is a market which in ordinary years may take off about thirteen 
 millions worth of our manufactures; and in steadiness and regularity 
 it is unrivalled. In this respect, or indeed in any other, it very little 
 resembles the right honourable gentleman's* famous South American 
 market. It has none of the difficulty and uncertainty which it seems 
 are now among the characteristics of a good trade; neither has it that 
 other remarkable quality of subjecting those who use it to a loss of 
 fifty or sixty per cent, unless they put their speculations and assort- 
 ments under the fostering care of the Board of Trade. All such 
 properties I disclaim on the part of the American commerce; it is 
 sure and easy, and known, and gives great and steady profits. The 
 returns are indeed as sure, and the bad debts as few, as they used to 
 be even in the trade of Holland. Those returns are also grown 
 much more speedy. Of this you have ample proof before you, not 
 merely from the witnesses actually examined, who have all said that 
 the payment was now as quick as in any other line, and that the 
 Americans often preferred ready money bargains for the discount; 
 but the same thing is exemplified in the omissions of the case brought 
 forward by the petitioners. Four years ago they told you, and proved 
 it at your bar, that were the intercourse with the United States cut 
 off we should lose about twelve millions, or a year and a half's pay- 
 
 * Mr. Rose.
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES. 245 
 
 ments, that being the sum then due from America to this country. 
 Now they have no such case to urge; fur they well know, that were 
 a balance struck between the two nations to-morrow, it would be 
 considerably in favour of the Americans, so greatly have they increased 
 in wealth, and so rapidly has this trade been growing as it were under 
 our very eyes! 
 
 There are some political facts, which we must take as facts, be- 
 cause they are proved to us, without being able to account for them, 
 or to trace them to their origin, and explain their causes. But the 
 extent, and swift and regular progress of the American market for 
 British goods is not of this number; we can easily and clearly account 
 for it. In the nature of things it can be no otherwise, and the reason 
 lies on the very surface of the fact. America is an immense agricul- 
 tural country, where land is plentiful and cheap; men and labour, 
 though quickly increasing, yet still scarce and dear when compared 
 with the boundless regions which they occupy and cultivate. In such 
 a country, manufacturers do not naturally thrive; every exertion, if 
 matters be left to themselves, goes into other channels. This people 
 is connected with England by origin, language, manners, and insti- 
 tutions; their tastes go along with their convenience, and they come 
 to us as a matter of course for the articles which they do not make 
 themselves. Only take one fact as an example: The negroes in the 
 Souihern States are clothed in English made goods, and it takes forty 
 shillings a-year thus to supply one of those unfortunate persons. 
 This will be admitted to be the lowest sum for which any person in 
 America can be clothed; but take it as the average, and make deduc- 
 tion for the expenses above prime cost you have a sum upon the 
 whole population of eight millions, which approaches the value of 
 our exports to the United States. But it is not merely in clothing; 
 go to any house in the Union, from their large and wealthy cities to 
 the most solitary cabin or log-house in the forests you find in every 
 corner the furniture, tools, and ornaments of Staffordshire, of War- 
 wickshire, and of the northern counties of England. The wonder 
 ceases when we thus reflect for a moment, and we plainly perceive 
 that it can be no otherwise. The whole population of the country 
 is made up of customers, who require and who can afford to pay for 
 our goods. This, too, is peculiar to that nation, and it is a peculiarity 
 as happy for them as it is profitable to us. I know the real or affected 
 contempt with which some persons in this country treat our kins- 
 men of the west. I fear some angry and jealous feelings have sur- 
 vived our former more intimate connection with them feelings 
 engendered by the event of its termination, but which it would be 
 wiser as well as more manly to forget. Nay, there are certain ro- 
 mantic spirits who even despise the unadorned structure of their 
 massive democratic society. But to me I freely acknowledge the 
 sight of one part of it brings feelings of envy, as an Englishman; I 
 mean the happy distinction, that over the whole extent of that bound- 
 less continent, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the 
 Mississippi to the Atlantic Ocean, there is not one pauper to be found. 
 
 21*
 
 246 ORDERS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Such are the customers whom America presents to us. The rapid 
 increase of their culture and population too, doubling in twenty-five 
 or thirty years, must necessarily augment this demand for our goods 
 in the same proportion. Circumstanced as the two countries are, I 
 use no figure of speech, but speak the -simple fact when I say, that 
 not an axe falls in the woods of America which does not put in mo- 
 tion some shuttle, or hammer, or wheel in England. Look at Mr. 
 Parkes's evidence, and you will see that the changes which happen 
 in the New World, or the political proceedings of the two govern- 
 ments, their orders, and manifestoes, and negotiations, may be per- 
 ceptibly traced in their instantaneous effects in this country in the 
 increased or diminished velocity (I speak to the letter) of the wheels 
 which are moving in the different districts where English manufac- 
 tures used to flourish. 
 
 But let us merely pause upon the broad fact of the present amount 
 of the American market, and let us keep our eye for a moment upon 
 the numerical expression of its demand thirteen millions sterling by 
 the year! Why, sir, only conceive any event which should give an 
 opening in the north of Europe, or the Mediterranean for but a small 
 part of this vast bulk some change or accident by which a thirteenth, 
 aye, or a thirtieth of this enormous value of British goods could be 
 thrown into the enemy's countries! Into what transports of delight 
 would the Vice President be flung! I verily believe he would make 
 but one step from his mansion to his office all Downing-street, and 
 all Dukes'-place would be in an uproar of joy. Bless me, what a 
 scene of activity and business should we see! What cabinets what 
 boards! What amazing conferences of lords of trade! What a 
 driving together of ministers! What a rustling of small clerks! 
 What a mighty rushing of brokers! Circulars to the manufacturing 
 towns harangues upon 'Change, performed by eminent naval charac- 
 ters triumphal processions of dollars and volunteers in St. James's- 
 square! Hourly deputations from the merchants courteous and 
 pleasing answers from the board a speedy importation into White- 
 hall, to a large amount, of worthy knights representing the city a 
 quick return cargo of licenses and hints for cargoes the whole craft 
 and mystery of that license trade revived, will) its appropriate per- 
 juries and frauds new life given to the drooping firms of dealers in 
 forgery, whom I formerly exposed to you answered by correspond- 
 ing activity in the Board of Trade and its clerks slips of the pen worth 
 fifteen thousand pounds* judicious mistakes well considered over- 
 sights elaborate inadvertencies Why, sir, so happily constituted 
 is the right honourable gentleman's! understanding, that his very 
 blunders are more precious than the accuracies of other men; and it 
 is no metaphor, but a literal mercantile proposition, to say, that it is 
 better worth our while to err with him than to think rightly with the 
 
 * Mr. Barinnr had stated, that by two mistakes at one time licenses were ren- 
 dered so valuable, that he would have given that sum for them. 
 Mr. Rose.
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES. 247 
 
 rest of mankind! And all this life, and activity, and machinery for 
 what? To snatch at a miserable export occasional fleeting 
 irregular ephemeral very limited in amount unlikely to recur 
 uncertain in its return precarious in its continuance beneficial to 
 the enemy exposed to his caprices, and liable by his nod to be swept 
 at once into the fund of his confiscations enjoyed while he does 
 permit it, by his sufferance for his ends enriching his subjects 
 manning his fleets nursing up for him a navy which it has already 
 taken the utmost efforts of our unconquerable marine to destroy! 
 Good God! the incurable perverseness of human folly! always 
 straining after things that are beyond its reach, of doubtful worth 
 and discreditable pursuit, and neglecting objects of immense value, 
 because in addition to their own importance, they have one recom- 
 mendation which would make their viler possessions desirable that 
 they can be easily obtained, and honestly as well as safely enjoyed! 
 It is this miserable, shifting, doubtful, hateful traffic that we prefer, 
 to the sure, regular, increasing, honest gains of American commerce; 
 to a trade which is placed beyond the enemy's reach which besides 
 encircling ourselves in peace and honour, only benefits those who are 
 our natural friends, over whom he has no control, but who if they 
 were ever so hostile to us, could not annoy us which supports at 
 once all that remains of liberty beyond the seas, and gives life and 
 vigour to its main pillar within the realm, the manufactures and com- 
 merce of England! 
 
 And now, sir, look to the other side of this picture. See to what 
 sources of supply you are driving the Americans, when you refuse 
 them your own markets Why, you are forcing them to be wholly 
 dependent on themselves! The eighteenth century closed with a 
 course of violence and folly, which in spite of every natural tie, dis- 
 solved their political connection with the crown; and, as if the cup of 
 our infatuation was not full, we must begin the nineteenth with the 
 phrenzy of severing them from all connection, and making them, con- 
 trary to the course of nature itself, independent of our manufacturers 
 and merchants! I will not go through the evidence upon this impor- 
 tant branch of the case, for I feel myself already too much exhausted 
 to attempt it; but whoever reads it will find it uniformly in every 
 page showing the effects of our system, in forcing manufactures all 
 over America to rival our own. There is not one branch of thfc many 
 in which we used quietly, and without the least fear of competition 
 to supply them, that is not now to a certain degree cultivated by 
 themselves; many have wholly taken rise since ISO? all have rapidly 
 sprung up to a formidable maturity. To give but a few examples. 
 In New York there are now forty thousand looms going glass is 
 made in a way that we ourselves witnessed, for we saw (lie specimen 
 produced wool cards are now made there which used regularly to 
 be imported from hence and there is a considerable exportation of 
 cotton twist to the South of Europe, from the country which possesses 
 the most abundantly the raw material. I say nothing of their wool, 
 and the excellent Merino breed they have obtained from Spain. Look
 
 248 ORDERS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 only to one striking fact Pittsburgh is a town remotely situated in 
 the most western part of the Union. Eighteen years ago it was a 
 hamlet, so feeble and insecure that the inhabitants could scarcely 
 defend themselves from their Indian neighbours, and durst hardly quit 
 the place for fear of being scalped. Now there are steam engines 
 and a large glass work in the same town, and you saw the product 
 of its furnaces. It stands on a stratum of coal fifteen feet thick, and 
 within a few inches of the surface, which extends overall the country 
 west of the Alleghany chain. Coal there sells for .six shillings the 
 chaldron, and the same precious mineral is to be found in the Atlantic 
 States, at Richmond, and elsewhere, accessible by sea. It is usual to 
 see men on 'Change in the large towns with twenty, thirty, and fifty 
 thousand pounds in trade Companies are established for manufac- 
 tures, insurance, and other mercantile speculations, with large capitals, 
 one as high as 120,000/. sterling The rate of interest is six per cent., 
 and the price of land in some places as high as in England. I do 
 not enumerate these things to prove that America can already supply 
 herself God forbid! If she could, the whole mischief would be 
 done, and we could not now avert the blow; but though too much 
 has indeed been effected by our impolicy, a breathing time yet is left, 
 and we ought at least to take advantage of it, and regain what has 
 been thrown away in four or five years' time it will be gone for 
 ever. 
 
 But I shall here be told, as I often have been, that these counsels 
 sprang from fear, and that I am endeavouring to instil a dread of Ame- 
 rican manufactures, as the ground of our measures Not so, sir I am 
 inculcating another fear the wholesome fear of utter impolicy mixed 
 with injustice of acting unfairly to others for the purpose of ruining 
 yourselves. And after all, from what quarter does this taunt proceed? 
 Who are they by whom I am upbraided for preaching up a dread of 
 rival American manufactures? The very men whose whole defence of 
 the system is founded upon a fear of competition from European manu- 
 factures who refuse to abandon the blockade of France, from an 
 apprehension (most ridiculous as the evidence shows) of European 
 manufactures rivalling us through American commerce who blockade 
 the Continent from a dread that the manufactures of France, by means 
 of the shipping of America, will undersell our own the men whose 
 whole principle is a fear of the capital, industry and skill of England 
 being outdone by the trumpery wares of France, as soon as her 
 market is equally open to both countries! Sir, little as I may think 
 such alarms worthy of an Englishman, there is a kind of fear which 
 I would fain urge a fear too of France; but it is of her arms and 
 not of her arts. We have in that quarter some ground for apprehen- 
 sion, and I would have our policy directed solely with a view to 
 removing it. Look only at the Spanish war in its relation to the 
 American trade. In that cause we have deeply embarked we have 
 gone on for years, pouring into it our treasures and our troops, almost 
 without limit, and all the profit is yet to come. We have still to gain 
 the object of so many sacrifices, and to do something which may show
 
 COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES. 249 
 
 they have not been made in vain. Some great effort it seems resolved 
 to make, and though of its result others tire far more sanguine than 
 I am able to feel, I can have litile hesitation in thinking, that we had 
 better risk some such attempt once for all, and either gain the end in 
 view, or, convinced that it is unattainable, retire from the contest. If 
 then this is our policy, for God's sake let the grand effort be made, 
 single and undivided undistracted by a new quarrel, foreign to the 
 purpose, and fatally interfering with its fulfilment. Let us not for the 
 hundredth time commit the ancient error which has so often betrayed 
 us, of frittering down our strength of scattering our forces in nume- 
 rous and unavailing plans. We have no longer the same excuse for 
 this folly which we once had to urge. All the colonies in the world 
 are our own sugar Islands and spice Islands there are none from 
 Marlinico to Java, to conquer we have every species of unsaleable 
 produce in the gross, and all noxious climates without stint. Then let 
 ns not add a new leaf to the worst chapter of our book, and make for 
 ourselves new occasions, when we can find none, for persisting in the 
 most childish of all systems. While engaged heartily on our front in 
 opposing France, and trying the last chance of saving Europe, let us 
 not secure to ourselves a new enemy, America, on our flank. Surely 
 language wants a name for the folly which would, at a moment like 
 the present, on the eve of this grand and decisive and last battle, 
 reduce us to the necessity of feeding Canada with troops from Por- 
 tugal and Portugal with bread from England. 
 
 I know I shall be asked, whether I would recommend any sacrifice 
 for the mere purpose of conciliating America. I recommend no sacri- 
 fice of honour for that or for any purpose; but I will tell you, that I 
 think we can well and safely for our honour afford to conciliate Ame- 
 rica. Never did we stand so high since we were a nation, in point of 
 military character. We have it in abundance, and even to spare. 
 This unhappy and seemingly interminable war, lavish as it has been 
 in treasure, still more profuse of blood, and barren of real advantage, 
 has at least been equally lavish of glory; its feats have not merely 
 sustained the warlike fame of the nation, which would have been 
 much; they have done what seemed scarcely possible; they have 
 greatly exalted it; they have covered our arms with immortal renown. 
 Then I say use this glory use this proud height on which we now 
 stand, for the purpose of peace and conciliation with America. Let 
 this and its incalculable benefits be the advantage which we reap from 
 the war in Europe; for the fame of that war enables us safely to 
 take it. And who, I demand, give the most disgraceful councils 
 they who tell you we are in military character but of yesterday we 
 have yet a name to win we stand on doubtful ground we dare not 
 do as we list for fear of being thought afraid we cannot without loss 
 of name stoop to pacify our American kinsmen! Or I, who say we 
 are a great, a proud, a warlike people we have fought everywhere, 
 and conquered wherever we fought our character is eternally fixed 
 it stands too firm to be shaken and on the faith of it we may do 
 towards America, safely for our honour, that which we know our
 
 250 ORDERS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 interests require! This perpetual jealousy of America! Good God! 
 I cannot with temper ask on what it rests! It drives me to a passion 
 to think of it Jealousy of America! I should as soon think of being 
 jealous of the tradesmen who supply me with necessaries, or the 
 clients who entrust their suits to my patronage. Jealousy of America! 
 whose armies are yet at the plough, or making, since your policy has 
 wielded it so, awkward (though improving) attempts at the loom 
 whose assembled navies could not lay siege to an English sloop of 
 war: Jealousy of a power which is necessarily peaceful as well as 
 weak, but which, if it had all the ambition of France and her armies 
 to back it, and all the navy of England to boot, nay, had it the lust 
 of conquest which marks your enemy, and your own armies as well 
 as navy to gratify it is placed at so vast a distance as to be perfectly 
 harmless! And this is the nation of which for our honour's sake we 
 are desired to cherish a perpetual jealousy, for the ruin of our best 
 interests! 
 
 I trust, sir, that no such phantom of the brain will scare us from 
 the path of our duty. The advice which I tender is not the same 
 which has at all times been offered to this country. There is one 
 memorable era in our history, when other uses were made of our 
 triumphs from those which I recommend. By the treaty of Utrecht, 
 which the execrations of ages have left inadequately censured, we 
 were content to obtain as the whole price of Ramillies and Blenheim, 
 an additional share of the accursed slave trade. I give you other 
 counsels. I would have you employ the glory which you have won 
 at Talavera and Cornnna, in restoring your commerce to its lawful, 
 open, honest course; and rescue it from the mean and hateful chan- 
 nels in which it has lately been confined. And if any thoughtless 
 boaster in America or elsewhere should vaunt that you had yielded 
 through fear, I would not bid him wait until some new achievement 
 of our arms put him to silence, but I would counsel you in silence to 
 disregard him. 
 
 Sir, I move you "That an humble address be presented to his 
 Royal Highness the Prince Regent, representing to his Royal High- 
 ness that this House has, for some time past, been engaged in an 
 inquiry into the present depressed state of the manufactures and com- 
 merce of the country, and the effects of the Orders in Council issued 
 by his Majesty in the years 1807 and 1S09; assuring his Hoyal High- 
 ness, that this House will at all times support his Royal Highness to 
 the utmost of its power, in maintaining those just maritime rights 
 which have essentially contributed to the prosperity and honour of the 
 realm but beseeching his Royal Highness, that he would be gra- 
 ciously pleased to recall or suspend the said orders, and to adopt such 
 measures as may tend to conciliate neutral powers, without sacrificing 
 the rights and dignity of his Majesty's crown."
 
 SPEECH 
 
 AT 
 
 THE LIVERPOOL ELECTION 
 
 1812. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 MR. ROSCOE. MR. C REE VET. 
 
 IN cor-equence of Mr. Brougham's connection, both in 1808 and 1812, with the 
 commercial interests of Liverpool, especially those persons engaged in the American 
 trade, he was invited to attend a public dinner after the termination of the Northern 
 Circuit, in August 1812. Mr. Roscoe presided, and the Lord Lieutenant, the late 
 Lord Derby, as well as the present Earl, then Lord Stanley, with Lord Sefton, 
 and many others of the Lancashire country gentlemen who favoured liberal princi- 
 ples, attended. Dr. Shepherd, the able, learned, and enlightened friend of every 
 cause connected with the interests of civil and religious liberty, also honoured the 
 meeting with his presence. A requisition was soon after sent inviting Mr. Broug- 
 ham to stand as candidate for the borough at the approaching general election, and 
 it was immediately manifest that one of the present members, General Tarleton, 
 had no chance of success, should Mr. Brougham accept the invitation, which he im- 
 mediately did. 
 
 But a further resolution was taken, which has been, in consequence of the event- 
 ual failure, the subject of much animadversion upon the Whig leaders of Liverpool. 
 Not satisfied with returning one member, they brought forward a second in the 
 person of their fellow-townsman, Mr. Creevoy, then member for Thetford, for 
 which place he was again returned during the Liverpool election. The first effect 
 of this proceeding was to cofirm the Tory parly in the intention which they had 
 already been discussing among themselves, that of bringing forward Mr. Canning, 
 together with General Gascoigne, who stood upon the old corporation interest. 
 Mr. Canning accepted the invitation of the great and spirited body of Tory mer- 
 chants not immediately connected with that municipal body, and there were thus 
 four candidates in the field standing upon four several interests General Gas- 
 coigne, upon that of ilio Corporation Mr. Canning upon the Tory Independent 
 int< rest Mr. IJrougharn and Mr. Creevey, upon the Whig interest and General 
 Tarlelon, upon such support as might remain to him among his former adherents. 
 
 Those who were acquainted with Liverpool well knew that the Whig interest, 
 at least in later times, had never returned even a, single member but once, when 
 Mr. lioscoe was chosen with General Gascoigm: in 180G, the. Grcnville ministry 
 being then in power; for though General Tarleton was commonly ranked as one 
 of Mr. Fox's friends, he yet owed his seat as much to Tory support as to Whig,
 
 252 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 being chosen from local and personal connection with the place. No one, there- 
 fore at all acquainted with Liverpool politics, and whose judgment was left calm 
 and unbiassed by the passing events, especially the late victory against the Orders 
 in Council, had any very sanguine expectation that the Whig interest could defeat 
 entirely all the Tory power, the Corporation interest, and the government influence; 
 and the total defeat of the opposition party seemed inevitable, unless one of their 
 candidates should be withdrawn. 
 
 Mr. Roscoe was the principal advocate of the measure now under consideration 
 and certainly there was no man whose opinion better deserved to be consulted, 
 whose wishes had more claims to compliance, or whose errors, if such they were, 
 had a greater right to indulgence. He was in some respects one of the most re- 
 markable persons that have of late years appeared in either the political or the 
 literary world. Born in the most humble station, for his parents were menial ser- 
 vants in the fine country mansion which afterwards was his own, he had risen to 
 the highest rank in a laborious and useful profession, having become one of the 
 most eminent of the Lancashire Solicitors a class of practitioners distinguished 
 among those of the kingdom at large by great knowledge of their profession, 
 and admirable skill in the conduct of their clients' affairs. Struggling with all 
 the disadvantages of narrow circumstances, and of an education necessarily restrict- 
 ed, he had not only accomplished himself in the legal walks of his profession, 
 but educated himself in more classical studies, so as to have become a great pro- 
 ficient in pursuits seldom if ever before combined with the practice of an attorney. 
 His taste was cultivated and refined by familiarity with Roman literature, and his 
 mind was still farther enriched by a thorough acquaintance with the monuments 
 of Italian genius. He devoted himself, notwithstanding the constant interruption 
 of liis business, to the study of all modern, as well as of Latin poetry, and with 
 the rare exception of Mr. Mathias, it may be affirmed, that no one on this side the 
 Alps, has ever been more intimately acquainted with the writers, especially the 
 poets, of modern Italy. The natural elegance of his mind, connected in a great 
 measure with his honest simplicity of character, and the unruffled gentleness of his 
 bland and kindly temper, was soon displayed in some poetical productions, among 
 which his celebrated song on the early progress of the French Revolution, acquired 
 the greatest reputation. 
 
 But he united with the exercise of this talent a love of historical research, and 
 an exercise of critical power, which combined with his poetical resources and 
 his knowledge of languages, to form in him the most accomplished cultivator of 
 literary history that ever appeared in any age. For although Muratori first, and 
 afterwards Tirabosohi, in Italy, some others in France, and many in Germany, 
 have left monuments of greater research have thoroughly traced the progress of 
 letters in various ways have compiled their annals with that industry which can 
 hardly be said to have survived them and have bequeathed to after ages rich 
 mines wherein to quarry, rather than galleries of finished works to gaze at we 
 shall in vain search their numerous volumes for that grace and ease, that mixture 
 of history and anecdote, that interspersion of philosophy with narrative, that com- 
 bination of sagacity in commenting upon characters and events with taste in de- 
 scribing and in judging the productions of the fine arts, which lend such a charm to 
 the Lives of Lorenzo de Medici and Leo X; while their interest is still further 
 heightened by the rich vein of the most felicitous poetical translation which runs 
 through the whole of these admirable works, and leaves the less learned reader 
 hardly a right to lament, because it scarcely lets him feel, his ignorance of the 
 original tongues. The sensation caused by the life of the great Prince-Merchant 
 of Tuscany suddenly appearing to enlighten the literary hemisphere, is still 
 remembered by many. It seemed as if a new pleasure had been invented, a new 
 sense discovered. Criticism was dumb; men had only time to be pleased and to be 
 
 f ratified; and at a period whon the dignity of the Senate, even of its Lower Cham- 
 er, never allowed any allusion to the contemporary productions of the press, a 
 Peer who had twice been minister and was still a great party chief,* begged their 
 lordships to devote as much time as they might be able to spare from Lorenzo de 
 
 * Marquis of Lansdownc, father of the present Lord.
 
 LIVERPOOL ELECTION. 253 
 
 Medici, to (he study of an important state affair. I3y those works Mr. Roseoe not 
 only laid deep and solid the foundations of an enduring fame for himself, but 
 founded also a school, in which Dr. Shepherd, author of the life of Poggio Brac- 
 ciolini, and others have since distinguished themselves, and enriched the republic 
 of letters. 
 
 Although it is by the productions of his pen that Mr. Roscoe's name has been 
 made famous throughout Europe, yet were his merits and his claims to the grati- 
 tude of mankind of a more various kind. An ardent devotion, from pure principle, 
 to the best interests of humanity, was the unvarying and the constant guide of his 
 public conduct, as the most strict discharge of every duty marked each step of his 
 walk in private life. A solicitor in extensive practice, he was the advocate of all 
 sound law reform. An attorney in the Borough Courts, he was the stern uncom- v 
 promising enemy of chicanery, the fearless defender of the oppressed. A man of 
 business vmder a wealthy and powerful corporation, he was ever the implacable de- 
 nouncer of jobs and abuses. A confidential adviser among the aristocracy of the 
 most Tory county in England, he was the most uncompromising enemy of tyranny, 
 the friend of the people, the apostle of even democratic opinions. A leader among 
 the parties who most gained by the war, he was throughout its whole course the 
 zealous preacher of peace; and standing high among the traders of Liverpool, and 
 at the head of its society, he was tho unflinching enemy of the African Slave Trade, 
 the enthusiastic advocate of its abolition. When ho rose in fame, and throve in 
 wealth when he became one of the great bankers of the place, and was courted by 
 all the leading men in its society when his fame was spread over the world, and 
 his native town became known in many remote places, as having given him birth, 
 when he was chosen to represent her in Parliament, and associated with the first 
 statesmen of the age this truly excellent person's unaffected modesty, his primi- 
 tive, simplicity of manners, never deserted him. As his rise in life had been rapid 
 and easy, he bore his good fortune with an equal mind; and when the commercial 
 distresses of the country involved his affairs in ruin, the clouds which overcast the 
 evening of his days disturbed not the serenity of his mind; the firmness which 
 could maintain itself against the gales of prosperity, found the storms of adverse 
 fortune, though more boisterous, much louder in their noise, yet not at all deceitful, 
 and really less rude in their shock. His latter years were passed in his much 
 loved literary leisure consoled by the kindness of his friends happy in the bosom 
 of his amiable family universally respected by his countrymen by all the wise 
 admired beloved by all the good. 
 
 Mr. Hoscoe had satisfied his own mind that if Liverpool only sent one Whig 
 with one Tory member to Parliament, the votes of the two neutralizing each other, 
 she would be unrepresented a fallacy plausible enough when thus stated, but 
 easily exposed, by reflecting that if each constituency had been so represented, the 
 Tory government must be at once overthrown. His councils, however, assisted by 
 the great victory recently obtained in Parliament, and with which this contest w*is 
 intimately connected, prevailed with the party. Mr. Creevey was brought into tho 
 field, and the contest proceeded with a violence until then unprecedented. 
 
 Of Mr. Canning, the champion of the Tory party, it is unnecessary here to speak. 
 His great talents, his extensive accomplishments the happy events which con- 
 nected him with the liberal parly, first upon the question of religious toleration, 
 then upon foreign policy the accident of his becoming the instrument by which 
 mainly the old Tory party in this county was broken up are all fresh in any rea- 
 der's recollection. His connection with Liverpool was not without its influence, 
 both upon the course of those great events, and upon his political character. It 
 took its latter shade very much from the contact with the people into which he was 
 for the first time in his life brought at Liverpool; and if the disposition to take 
 popular courses which he then acquired, tended to alienate from him the confidence 
 of the court party, who not only deserted, but ill-used and persecuted him during 
 his latter years, it i.s equally certain that from this source we may trace much of 
 the goo. I which has in late times been accomplished for the cause of the people 
 and of liberal policy. 
 
 Hut of Mr. Creevey, it is fit that something should here be said, as upon his 
 share in the contest of 1812, although assuredly not from any the least desire on 
 VOL. I. 22
 
 254 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 his own part to mix in it, the issue of the election finally turned. "When a second 
 candidate was resolved upon, there could be no doubt where to look for him. Mr. 
 Creevey was a native of Liverpool, well known to the chief men of the place, on 
 very intimate habits with many of them, with their leader Mr. Roscoe, especially, 
 and recommended to the people by a long and consistent course of the most steady 
 disinterested attachment to the principles of the liberal party. For he had been 
 ten years in parliament, during which time he had, at great personal sacrifices, 
 devoted himself to the strenuous assertion of popular rights, the exposure of all 
 abuses in the management of affairs, the promotion of retrenchment and economy 
 in all departments of the public service, the restoration of peace, and the further- 
 ance of constitutional principles after the Whig or Foxite model. His opinions 
 coincided with those of the Whig aristocracy on questions of Parliamentary 
 Reform, being friendly to that policy, but not carrying it to any great length, and 
 regarding many abuses in the elective system, such as the bribery and expenses of 
 elections where there are two or three hundred voters, as far worse in themselves, 
 and much more pernicious in their consequences, both to the character of the voters 
 and to the structure of the Parliament, than those flaws of rotten and nomination 
 boroughs, which look far worse, and on all abstract principle, are much more 
 difficult to defend. But on other matters he had many wide differences with the 
 regular leaders of his party. He despised the timidity which so often paralyzed 
 their movements; he disliked the jealousies, the personal predilections and preju- 
 dices which so frequently distracted their councils; he abhorred the spirit of in- 
 trigue, which not rarely gave some inferior man, or some busy meddling woman, 
 probably unprincipled, a sway in the destiny of the party, fatal to its success, 
 and all but fatal to its character; he held in utter ridicule the squeamhhness both 
 as to persons and things, which emasculated so many of the genuine, regular 
 "Whigs; and no considerations of interest no relations of friendship no regard 
 for party discipline (albeit in other respects a decided and professed party man, 
 and one thoroughly sensible of the value of party concert) could prevail with 
 him to pursue that course so ruinous to the Whig opposition, of half-and-half 
 resistance to the government; marching to the attack with one eye turned to the 
 court, and one askance to the country, nor ever making war upon the Ministry 
 without regarding the time when themselves might occupy the position, now the 
 object of assault. 
 
 This manly, straightforward view of things not unaccompanied with expressions, 
 both as to men and measures, in which truth and strength seemed more studied 
 than courtesy, gave no little offence to the patrician leaders of the party, who never 
 could learn the difference between 1810 and 1780 still fancied they lived " in times 
 before the flood" of the French Revolution, when the heads of a few great families 
 could dispose of all matters according to their own good pleasure and never could 
 be made to understand how a feeble motion, prefaced by a feeble speech, if 
 made by an elderly lord, and seconded by a younger one, could fail to satisfy the 
 country and shake the Ministry. But Mr. Creevey, and those who thought with 
 him, such as Lord Folkestone (now Radnor) and General Ferguson, did not con- 
 fine their dissidence to criticism, complaint, remonstrance. Their conduct kept pace 
 with their language, and was framed upon the sentiments to which we have refer- 
 red. Carefully avoiding any course that might give a victory to the common 
 enemy, or retard the progress of their principles, they nevertheless often took a 
 line of their own, bringing forward motions which were deemed too strong, as 
 well as expressing opinions supposed to be too vehement, and opposing a resist- 
 ance to many errors and abuses of the government which the more aristocratic 
 portion of the Whig party were inclined either feebly to impugn or altogether to 
 pass over. On all that regarded the economy of the public money, still more on 
 every instance of abuse, most of all on official corruption or delinquency of any 
 kind, they were inexorable; nor did any sort of questions tend more to sow dissen- 
 sion between them and the party at large, than questions of this description 
 which involved considerations of economy and abuse, and of necessity led to 
 personal charges often against men in high rank and station. The inquiries 
 respecting the Duke of York, and those cognate questions respecting public cor- 
 ruption, which grew out of that famous passage, first banded together this party,
 
 LIVERPOOL ELECTION. 255 
 
 jocularly termed " The Mountain," and drc\v a line of demarcation between them 
 and the more regular portion of the Whigs. \or were the marks of this separation 
 ever well effaced until the enjoyment of office for several years had reconciled 
 men's minds to thi-ir lot, and smoothed, without wholly planing down, the 
 asperities of the line denoted by the junction of the two parts whereof the party was 
 composed. 
 
 Mr. Creevcy was a man of strong natural sense, without much cultivation, 
 though extremely well-informed up.iii all political subjects. His judgment being 
 so much more remarkable than his imagination, he was apt to hold everything in 
 contempt which betokened either fancy or refinement. Preferring the shortest and 
 the plainest road to his point, either looking down upon the ornamental parts of 
 eloquence with contempt, or seeing them from a distance which he never aspired 
 to pass, his style of speaking was that of a plain, reasoning, sensible person, who 
 never left statements of facts and of reason, except to deal in somewhat fluent if 
 not coarse invective. Even his invective consisted more in stating plain f.icts of 
 an unpleasant nature, than in mere vituperative declamation. His taste, with all 
 this contempt for refinement and delicacy, was perfectly correct; perhaps too severe 
 and unbending; certainly defective in classing the flights of oratory, however sus- 
 tained, with the less chaste productions of the rhetorician. Frequently in public, 
 always in private society, his distinguishing excellence was a broad, inimitable, 
 most successful humour; for he had a quick sense of the ridiculous in character, and 
 a lively relish of the ludicrous, nor was he slow to indulge in the gratification of 
 it. Mob oratory was never in much estimation with him; yet he was sure to suc- 
 ceed in it when lie tried, as at the Liverpool election where his description of the 
 meaning of the Previous Question was much noted; and conveys an idea of his 
 manner. " You often hear when any of our irregular partisans having framed a 
 motion against some public defaulter, that it is said to have been got rid by the 
 Previous Question. Now you may just as well know what this means. It is 
 that the whole House says, 'All these things are very true, and we have no answer 
 to make, and therefore the less that's said about the matter the better.' " He had 
 some defects of temper which made him an undervaluer of all who differed from 
 him in opinion, and a somewhat fierce enemy. He took more pleasure in censure 
 than in praise, and was not very patient of the candour towards adversaries iu 
 others, which he so much wanted himself. But if he was a prejudiced antago- 
 nist and a strong hater, he was also a warm supporter and a steady friend, nor 
 grudged any trouble, nor shrunk from any hazard in defence of those to whom ho 
 was attached. lie is said to have left a minute Journal of political as well as 
 personal occurrences, which he kept for above thirty years of his life; and although 
 it will require to be read with large allowances for the force of his personal preju- 
 dices, it is likely to contain more interesting materials for secret, and indeed for 
 general history, than any collection of the kind which has ever appeared in this 
 country. 
 
 After the election had gone on for some days, the Tories who supported Mr. 
 Canning, made a direct proposition for a junction with Mr. Brougham's party, on 
 the footing of the former giving up General Gaseoigne, and the latter withdraw- 
 ing Mr. Crecvey. But this proposal was rejected, neither Mr. Brougham nor Mr. 
 Crecvey giving any opinion upon the subject, nor expressing any wish; except 
 that the latter desired to be put wholly out of the question, the more especially as 
 his se.it was already secured by his being returned for Thetford. The proposition 
 was rejected, and the election was lost; General Gascoigne being then supported 
 by Mr. Canning's friends, and returned along with him. Mr. Brougham was in 
 consequence lliruwn out of parliament, anil no seat could bo found for him among 
 all the \\ big boroughs, until, al'ter an exclusion of three sessions, he was, by 
 Lord I);ir]iii!_ r ton's (Duke of Cleveland's) interest, at the request of his steady 
 and fitlil'ul friend, Lord Grey, returned for \\incliolsea, which lie represented un- 
 til Ih.'iO, when he was returned first for Knaresborougli upon the Duke of Devon- 
 shire's interest, and then for Yorkshire upon his own. 
 
 The following speech was addressed to the. people at Liverpool on the close 
 of the poll, on tbt; evening of the fourth day being a very critical moment ol 
 the contest, and the night before the proposal above referred to came lioiu the 
 other party.
 
 S P E E C H 
 
 AT 
 
 THE LIVERPOOL ELECTION 
 
 FRIDAY, OCT. 8, 1812. 
 
 GENTLEMEN I feel it necessary after the fatigues of this long and 
 anxious day, to entreat, as I did on a former occasion, that you would 
 have the goodness to favor me with as silent a hearing as possible, 
 that I may not by over-exertion in my present exhausted state, de- 
 stroy that voice which I hope I may preserve to raise in your defence 
 once more hereafter. 
 
 Gentlemen, I told you last night when we were near the head of 
 the poll, that I, for one at least, would never lose heart in the conflict, 
 or lower my courage in fighting your battles, or despair of the good 
 cause although we should be fifty, a hundred, or even two hundred 
 behind our enemies. It has happened this day, that we have fallen 
 short of them, not quite by two hundred, but we have lost one hun- 
 dred and seventy votes: I tell you this with the deepest concern, with 
 feelings of pain and sorrow which I dare not trust myself in attempt- 
 ing to express. But I tell it you without any sensation approaching 
 to despondency. This is the only feeling which I have not now pre- 
 sent in my breast. I am overcome with your unutterable affection 
 towards me and my cause. I feel a \vonder mingled with gratitude, 
 which no language can even attempt to describe, at your faithful, 
 unwearied, untarneable exertions in behalf of our common object. I 
 am penetrated with an anxiety for its success, if possible, more lively 
 than any of yourselves can know, who are my followers in this 
 mighty struggle an anxiety cruelly increased by that which as yet 
 you are ignorant of, though you are this night to hear it. To my 
 distinguished friends who surround me, and connect me more closely 
 with you, I am thankful beyond all expression. I am lost in admi- 
 ration of the honest and courageous men amongst you who have 
 resisted all threats as well as bribes, and persevered in giving me 
 their free mibonght voices. For those unhappy persons who have 
 been scared by imminent fear on their own and their children's be- 
 half from obeying the impulse of their conscience, I feel nothing of
 
 LIVERPOOL ELECTION. 257 
 
 resentment nothing but pity and compassion. Of those who hatfe 
 thus opposed us, I think as charitably as a man can think in such 
 circumstances. For this great town, (if it is indeed to be defeated in 
 the contest, which I will not venture to suppose) for the country at 
 large whose cause we are upholding whose fight we are fighting 
 for the whole manufacturing and trading interests for all who love 
 peace all who have no profit in war I feel moved by the deepest 
 alarm lest our grand attempt may not prosper. All these feelings are 
 in my heart at this moment they are various they are conflicting 
 they are painful they are burthensome but they are not over- 
 whelming! and amongst them all, and I have swept round the whole 
 range of which the human mind is susceptible there is not one that 
 bears the slightest resemblance to despair. I trust myself once more 
 into your faithful hands 1 fling myself again on you for protection 
 I call aloud to you to bear your own cause in your hearts I im- 
 plore of you to come forth in your own defence for the sake of this 
 vast town and its people for the salvation of the middle and lower 
 orders for the whole industrious part of the whole country I en- 
 treat you by your love of peace by your hatred of oppression 
 by your weariness of burthensome and useless taxation by yet 
 another appeal to which those must lend an ear who have been deaf 
 to all the rest I ask it for your families for your infants if you 
 would avoid such a winter of horrors as the last ! It is coming fast upon 
 us already it is near at hand yet a few short weeks and we may be 
 in the midst of those unspeakable miseries, the recollection of which now 
 rends your very souls. If there is one freeman amongst this immense 
 multitude who has not tendered his voice and if he can be deaf to 
 this appeal if he can suffer the threats of our antagonists to frighten 
 him away from the recollections of the last dismal winter that man 
 will not vote for me. But if I have the happiness of addressing one 
 honest man amongst you, who has a care left for his wife and chil- 
 dren, or for other endearing ties of domestic tenderness, (and which 
 of us is altogether without them?) that man will lay his hand on his 
 heart when I now bid him do so and with those little threats of 
 present spite ringing in his ear, he will rather consult his fears of 
 greater evil by listening to the dictates of his heart, when he casts a 
 look towards the dreadful season through which he lately passed 
 and will come bravely forward to place those men in parliament 
 whose whole efforts have been directed towards the restoration of 
 peace, and the revival of trade. 
 
 / Do not, gentlemen, listen to those who tell you the cause of freedom 
 is desperate; they arc the enemies of that cause and of you but 
 listen to me for you know me and I am one who has never yet 
 deceived you I say, then, that // icill he desperate if you make no 
 exertions to retrieve it. I tell you that your languor alone can betray 
 it that it can only be made desperate through your despair. I am 
 not a man to be cast down by temporary reverses, let them come 
 upon me as thick, and as swift, and as sudden as they may. I am 
 not he who is daunted by majorities in the outset of a struggle for 
 
 22*
 
 258 LIVERPOOL ELECTION. 
 
 worthy objects else I should not now stand here before you to boast 
 of triumphs won in your cause. If your champions had yielded to 
 the force of numbers of gold of power if defeat could have dis- 
 mayed them then would the African Slave Trade never have been 
 abolished then would the cause of reform, which now bids fair to 
 prevail over its enemies, have been long ago sunk amidst the deser- 
 tions of its friends then would those prospects of peace have been 
 utterly benighted, which I still devoutly cherish, and which even now 
 brighten in our eyes then would the orders in council which I over- 
 threw by your support, have remained a disgrace to the British name, 
 and an eternal obstacle to our best interests. I no more despond now 
 than I have done in the course of those sacred and glorious conten- 
 tions but it is for yoi^to say whether to-morrow shall not make it 
 my duty to despair. ^To-morrow is your last day your last efforts 
 must then be made; if you put forth your strength the day is your 
 own if you desert me, it is lost. To win it I shall be the first to 
 lead you on, and the last to forsake you. 
 
 Gentlemen, when I told you a little while ago, that there were new 
 and powerful reasons to-day for ardently desiring that our cause might 
 succeed, I did not sport with you yourselves shall now judge of 
 them. I ask you Is the trade with America of any importance to 
 this great and thickly peopled town? (cries of Yes! yes!) Is a con- 
 tinuance of the rupture with America likely to destroy that trade? 
 (loud cries of, It is! it is!) Is there any man who would deeply feel 
 it, if he heard that the rupture was at length converted into open 
 war? Is there a man present who would not be somewhat alarmed 
 if he supposed that we should have another year without the Ame- 
 rican trade? Is there any one of nerves so hardy, as calmly to hear 
 that our government have given up all negotiation abandoned all 
 hopes of speedy peace witli America? Then I tell that man to brace 
 up his nerves I bid you all be prepared to hear what touches you 
 all equally. We are by this day's intelligence at war with America 
 in good earnest our government have at length issued letters of 
 rnarque and reprisal against the United States! (universal cries of, 
 God help us! God help us!} Aye, God help us! God of his infinite 
 compassion take pity on us! God help and protect this poor town 
 and this whole trading country! 
 
 Now, I ask you whether you will be represented in Parliament by 
 the men who have brought this grievous calamity on your heads, or 
 by those who have constantly opposed the mad career which was 
 plunging us into it? Whether will you trust the revival of your trade 
 the restoration of your livelihood to them who have destroyed it, 
 or to me whose counsels, if followed in time, would have averted this 
 unnatural war, and left Liverpool flourishing in opulence and peace? 
 Make your choice for it lies with yourselves which of us shall be 
 commissioned to bring back commerce and plenty they whose stub- 
 born infatuation has chased these blessings away or we, who are 
 only known to you as the strenuous enemies of their miserable policy, 
 the last friends of your best interests.
 
 LIVERPOOL ELECTION'. 259 
 
 Gentlemen, I stand up in this contest against the friends and follow- 
 ers of Mr. Pitt, or, as they partially designate him, the immortal states- 
 man now no more. Immortal in the miseries of his devoted conn- 
 try! Immortal in the wounds of her bleeding liberties! Immortal in 
 the cruel wars which sprang from his cold miscalculating ambition! 
 Immortal in the intolerable taxes, the countless loads of debt which 
 these wars have Hung upon us which the youngest man amongst us 
 will not live to see the end of! Immortal in the triumphs of our ene- 
 mies, and the ruin of our allies, the costly purchase of so much blood 
 and treasure! Immortal in the afflictions of England, and the humilia- 
 tion of her friends, through the whole results of his twenty years' reign, 
 from the first rays of favour with which a delighted court gilded his 
 early apostacy, to the deadly glare which is at this instant cast upon his 
 name by the burning metropolis of our last ally!* But may no such 
 immortality ever foil to my lot let me rather live innocent and inglo- 
 rious; and when at last I cease to serve you, and to feel for your 
 wrongs, may I have an humble monument in some nameless stone, to 
 tell that beneath it there rests from his labours in your service, "an 
 enemy of the immortal statesman a friend of peace and of the 
 people." 
 
 Friends! you must now judge for yourselves, and act accordingly. 
 Against us and against you stand those who call themselves the suc- 
 cessors of that man. They are the heirs of his policy; and if not of 
 his immortality too, it is only because their talents for the work of de- 
 struction are less transcendent than his. They are his surviving col- 
 leagues. His fury survives in them, if not his fire, and they partake 
 of all his infatuated principles, if they have lost the genius that first 
 made those principles triumphant. If you choose them for your dele- 
 gates, you know to what policy you lend your sanction what men 
 you exalt to power. Should you prefer me, your choice falls upon 
 one who, if obscure and unambitious, will at least give his own age 
 no reason to fear him, or posterity to curse him one whose proudest 
 ambition it is to be deemed the friend of Liberty and of Peace. 
 
 * The news of the burning of Moscow had arrived by that day's post.
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 ox 
 
 AGRICULTURAL AND MANUFACTURING 
 
 DISTRESS, 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 
 1816, 1817. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 DISTRESSES OF THE COUNTRY IN 1S1G METHOD OF SUCCESSFULLY 
 SUPPORTING THE PEOPLE IN PARLIAMENT. 
 
 THE return of peace did not bring back prosperity to any portion of the inhabi- 
 tants of this country. Whether it was that a war of twenty-throe years duration 
 had carried all the functions of the body politic to an unnatural state, only to be 
 maintained by the stimulants which war supplies, in place of more wholesome sup- 
 port; or that the drains of the heavy expenditure, created by the hostilities carried 
 on all over the globe, had exhausted our resources; or that the mere transition from 
 one state to another, operated on the political system, giving it the sudden shock 
 that a sudden relief from pain or from want would communicate to the natural 
 frame; certain it is, that there had never during the whole contest just closed, been 
 more general embarrassment felt, than was suffered, first by the agricultural interest 
 in 1810, and then by the manufacturing classes the year after. The relief obtained 
 from the burden of eighteen millions, by the repeal of the, income tax and war malt 
 duties in Isltj, however important, appeared to make but little impression upon 
 the mass of distress; and men were heard in all directions regretting the change 
 from war to peace, farmers wishing Napoleon back again, and merchants sighing 
 for the times when no ships but our own could keep the sea. The country, there- 
 fore, had recourse to the Parliament, and approached both houses, but especially that 
 of their representatives, with numerous petitions sitting forth, in moving terms, the 
 calamities that had befallen all the industrious classes, and praying F<T some 
 measures which might tend to their relief. These petitions wete less numerous 
 iu Hit'., because the meetings upon the income tax then engrossed the attention of 
 the people; and its repeal was expected to relieve the distresses of the farmers. 
 Hut in the following session, when the distress extended to the manufacturing 
 classes, the petitions increased in number, and were directed in some instances 
 by fallacious views, tu extremely injudicious measures, the must numerously
 
 262 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 signed of them all having for its prayer the prohibition of exporting cotton 
 twist, upon the notion that this encouraged foreign manufactures at the expense 
 of our own. The course of petitioning had come of late years into great favour 
 with the country, and it seems important to explain in what way this opinion 
 arose. 
 
 In the long inquiry which occupied the House in 1812, respecting the orders 
 in council, the efforts of the petitions against that policy had been attended with 
 the most complete success. Although opposed by the whole weight of the govern- 
 ment both in public and out of doors; although at first vigorously resisted by the 
 energy, the acuteness, the activity and the expertness, which made Mr. Perceval 
 one of the best debaters of his day; although after his death the struggle was 
 maintained by the father of the system with all his fire and with his full know- 
 ledge of the whole subject nay, although the Ministry brought to bear upon the 
 question, what is reckoned the most formidable engine that any government can 
 set in motion against its adversaries in any single measure, the announcement that 
 their official existence depended upon the result yet had the country gained a 
 signal and complete victory, and the favourite policy of the cabinet had been at 
 once and entirely surrendered to the pressing instance of the petitioners. When 
 men came to consider how this battle had been gained, no doubt could remain in 
 their minds as to the causes of success. It appeared clear that, as far as any 
 thing was to be expected from the direct expression of the people's voice through 
 their regular organs in Parliament, nothing could well be more desperate than the 
 prospect of the petitioners. But indirectly, the country could make its voice 
 heard and its influence felt. It was roused extensively to the consideration of 
 the question. Meetings were generally held, and many petitions came from them, 
 while others proceeded from persons who signed them, without otherwise bearing 
 a part in any public debates. The plan was now adopted by Mr. Brougham and 
 Mr. Baring of promoting discussion on all fair occasions connected with the sub- 
 ject. The interlocutory debates arising from questions raised by the examination 
 of the witnesses, provided many such opportunities. Motions for the production 
 of papers and accounts added to their number; and each petition that came up 
 from the country was made studiously, but very naturally, the subject of a con- 
 versation which often swelled into a long debate. The effects of this series of 
 discussions, lasting for six or seven weeks, were prodigious. They strongly excited 
 the country, and they communicated in their turn the influence of that excitement 
 to the House itself. They brought the public feeling to bear directly upon the 
 members who represented counties or towns, but they were not without their in- 
 fluence upon those who had no constituents at all. They were besides of the 
 most signal use in promoting the most thorough and sifting examination of every 
 part of the subject bringing all statements of facts to the test of rigorous 
 scrutiny trying by the criterion of free debate, liberated from the fetters of mere 
 form, the soundness of every position, and conclusiveness of every reason and 
 making it quite impossible for sophistry to seek shelter behind vague assertion, 
 or imbecile and fallacious argument to escape exposure behind the convenient 
 screen of those parliamentary rules which govern more regular debates. Hardly 
 an hour passed without detecting some false statement or illogical argument: hardly 
 a night passed without gaining some convert to the cause of truth; and real represen- 
 tatives who could face their constituents, and borough members who had no dread 
 of the county or of the society they lived in, provided their support of the vicious 
 and unpopular system were confined to a single vote by which its fate should be 
 decided once for all, would no longer venture to hold out, during all the skirmishes 
 and other movements that prepared the way for the great engagement, and they 
 dreaded still more the endless remonstrances by letter and by conference of deputa- 
 tions, which they had to undergo while the matter hung in so lengthened a sus- 
 pense, and the country was all the while exerting its activity to attain the common 
 object. This battle, then, for the people, was fought by the joint efforts of 
 themselves out of doors, and of their supporters in the House of Commons, and 
 by the mutual action and reaction of the House and the people upon each other. It 
 is a battle which may always be renewed; and is always of certain success on 
 any ground naturally adapted to its movements; that is to say, wherever a great
 
 INTRODUCTION. 263 
 
 popular feeling can bo excited and maintained, and wherever there are persons of 
 firmness and spirit to set themselves at the head of the people, regardless of the 
 frowns and the threats of power. It is equally certain that such a fight never 
 can be fought, with any chance of success, where the people are indifferent 
 to tho subject, and where they have no leaders in Parliament adequate to the 
 occasion. 
 
 The session of 181 G offered an example yet more remarkable of the same tactics 
 being attended with equally signal success. On the termination of tho war, the 
 government were determined, instead of repealing the whole income tax, which 
 the act enforcing it declared to be "for and during the continuance of the war and 
 no longer," to retain one half of it, that is, to reduce it from ten to five per cent, 
 and thus keep a revenue raised from this source of between seven and eight 
 millions, instead of fifteen. As soon as this intention was announced, several 
 meetings were held, and two or three petitions were presented. The ministers 
 perceived the risk they ran, if the former policy should be pursued, of continued 
 discussion for a length of time; and they saw the vast importance of dispatch. 
 Accordingly, the Chancellor of the Exchequer* gave notice on the Tuesday for 
 his motion on the Thursday immediately following. The opposition took the alarm, 
 and Mr. Brougham declared on presenting a petition numerously signed from one 
 of the London parishes, that if the hurry now indicated should be persevered in, 
 he should avail himself of all the means of delay afforded by the forms of the 
 House. Lord Folkestone,! one of the most strenuous, and in [those days one of 
 the most active and powerful supporters of the popular cause, vigorously seconded 
 this menace, in which he entirely joined. On the next day more petitions were 
 flung in; more discussions took place, and the government postponed for a week 
 the introduction of the bill. That week proved quite decisive; for so many meet- 
 ings were held, and so many petitions sent up, that the Bill was put off from 
 time to time, and did not finally make its appearance till the 17th of March. 
 Above six weeks were almost entirely spent by the House of Commons in receiv- 
 ing the numberless petitions poured in from all quarters against the tax. For it 
 was speedily seen that the campaign of 1812 was renewed, and that the same 
 leaders, Messrs. Brougham and Baring, had the management of the operations. 
 
 At first the ministers pursued the course of obstinate silence. The Opposi- 
 tion debated each petition in vain; every minister and ministerial member held his 
 peace. No arguments, no facts, no sarcasms, no taunts, could rouse them; no 
 expression of the feelings of the country, no reference to tho anxiety of particular 
 constituencies, could draw a word from the Ministers and their supporters. At 
 length it was perceived that their antagonists did not the less debate, and that con- 
 sequently the scheme had failed in its purpose of stifling discussion. The only 
 effect of it, then, was, that all the debating was on one side, and this both bccamo 
 hurtful to the government in the House, and more hurtful still in the country. 
 They were forced into discussion, therefore; and then began a scene of unexampled 
 interest which lasted until the second reading of the bill. Each night at a littlo 
 after four, commenced the series of debates which lasted until past midnight. 
 These were of infinite variety. Arguments urged by different speakers; instances 
 of oppression and hardships recounted; anecdotes of local suffering and personal 
 inconvenience; accounts of the remarkable passages at different meetings; personal 
 altercations interspersed with more general matter all filled up the measure of 
 the night's hill of fare; and all were so blended and so variegated, that no one ever 
 perceived any hour thus spent to pass tediously away. Those not immediately 
 concerned. Peers, or persons belonging to neither House, flocked to the spectacle 
 which each day presented. The interest, exciled out of doors kept pace with that 
 of the spectators; and those who carried on these active; operations showed a. 
 vigour and constancy if purpose, an unwearied readiness for the combat, which 
 astonished while it animated all beholders. It is recounted of this remarkahlu 
 struggle, that one niglit towards the latter end of tho period in question, when 
 at a late hour, the House having been in debate from four o'clock, one speaker had 
 resumed his seat, the whole members Kitting upon one entire bench rose, at once and 
 
 Mr. Vansittart. t Now Earl of Radnor.
 
 264 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 addressed the chair a testimony of unabated spirit and unquenchable animation 
 which drew forth the loudest cheers from all sides of the House. 
 
 At length came the 17th of March, the day appointed for the decision; but it 
 was soon found that this had been, with the debate, wholly anticipated. The usual 
 number of petitions, and even more, were poured thickly in during some hours; 
 little or no debating took place upon them; unusual anxiety for the result of such 
 long continued labour, and such lengthened excitement kept all silent and in sus- 
 pense; when about eleven o'clock Sir William Curtis, representing the City of 
 London, proceeded up the House bearing in his arms the petition, which he pre- 
 sented without any remark, of the great meeting of the bankers and merchants 
 holden in the Egyptian Hall, and signed by twelve thousand persons. The 
 division took place after a debate that did not last half an hour; no one could 
 indeed be heard in an assembly so impatient for the decision, and by a majority 
 of thirty-seven voices, the tax was defeated for ever, and the wholesome principle, 
 as Mr. Wilberforce well observed, was laid down, that war and income tax are 
 wedded together. 
 
 The same display which led to such important and even glorious success, the 
 cause of the people, in an unreformed Parliament, is to the full as requisite now, 
 and would produce, if possible, greater results. Neither slavery, nor limited 
 suffrage, nor petty constituencies, nor refusal of the ballot would stand before it 
 half a session. But unhappily it has seemed good to the Whig government that 
 they should adopt a course of proceeding which renders all the tactics of 1812 and 
 1816 impracticable. Forgetting what it was that raised them to power, the 
 remote cause of the Tory downfall, the policy which produced all the triumphs of 
 liberal opinions; forgetting, too, that though now in office, they may to-morrow be 
 restored to that opposition from which the triumphs of 1812 and 181G raised 
 them they have resolved that no petition shall now be discussed that whoever 
 presents it shall merely state its substance, after telling the body and the place 
 it comes from and that no other member shall make it the subject of any obser- 
 vation. To this plan for stifling the people's voice, and giving the ministers of 
 the day and their majority in Parliament an absolute control over the policy of the 
 empire, disarming the opposition of their main weapons, and shearing the people 
 of their chief strength, the speaker, Mr. Abercromby, has unhappily lent the support 
 of his authority, if he was not indeed the author of the scheme. It is of little mo- 
 ment to reflect that but for the policy of former and better times, this distinguished 
 and excellent person would now have been in the honourable but cheerless exile of 
 an Edinburgh sinecure judgeship, as his ministeral coadjutors would have been 
 doomed to exclusion from power on the benches of an eternal opposition. It is of 
 more importance to remark, that unless a speedy end is put to the present course of 
 proceeding, the mainstay of English liberty, the only effectual safeguard against 
 misgovernment and oppression, is taken from the people of these realms.
 
 SPEECH 
 
 ON THE 
 
 DISTRESSED STATE OF AGRICULTURE, 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 
 APRIL 9, 1816. 
 
 MR. BROGDEN: I feel very sensibly the disadvantages under which I 
 rise to enter upon the discussion of tin's momentous subject; not only 
 because I am in all respects so ill qualified to handle it successfully, 
 but because a pretty general indisposition has been expressed by the 
 House, to proceed in the inquiry this night. Nevertheless, as I was 
 one of those who objected to delay, and as I stated rny readiness to 
 go on with the debate, I am desirous of delivering my sentiments, such 
 as they are, upon the present occasion, that I may lay before the 
 Committee the ideas (whatever they may be worth) which I have 
 gathered from an honest and patient attention to the subject matter of 
 our investigation. 
 
 There is one branch of the argument which I shall pass over alto- 
 gether; I mean the amount of the distresses which are now univer- 
 sally admitted to prevail over almost every part of the empire. Upon 
 this topic all men are agreed; the statements connected with it are as 
 unquestionable as they are afllicting; each day's experience since my 
 honourable friend's motion* has added to their number and increased 
 their force; and the petition from Cambridgeshire presented at an early 
 part of this evening, has laid before you a fact, to which all the former 
 expositions of distress afforded no parallel, that in one parish, every 
 proprietor and tenant being ruined with a single exception, the whole 
 poor rates of the parish thus wholly inhabited by paupers, are now 
 paid by an individual, whose fortune, once ample, is thus swept entirely 
 away. Of the nature and extent of the evil, then, it is quite super- 
 fluous to speak; I purpose, with your permission, to apply myself to 
 the examination of its causes, and to such a view of the remedies or 
 palliatives proposed, as may naturally be suggested by a consideration 
 
 Mr. (now Lord) Western. 
 VOL. I. 23
 
 266 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 
 
 of those causes. Without entering somewhat at large into the origin 
 of our present difficulties, I am afraid we shall be apt to go astray in 
 our search after the means of relief. 
 
 A circumstance which must strike every observer who turns his 
 attention toward this state of the country, is the comparative state of 
 prices before and since the late war. In 1792, the average price of 
 wheat was 47s. the quarter; now its price is 57s., almost 20 per cent, 
 higher; and yet no complaint was ever heard of low prices before the 
 war, nor were any of those signs of distress to be perceived, which in 
 these times claim our pity in every part of the empire. This con- 
 sideration is of itself sufficient to show, that over-trading that excess 
 of cultivation is not the only cause of the evil we complain of; and 
 may warn us against the error of imputing it to the operation of any 
 one cause alone; for I am certainly disposed to rank the great extension 
 of cultivation among the principal causes, or at least to regard it as 
 lying near the foundation of the mischief. In attempting to unravel 
 the difficulties of this question, I trust the Committee will believe me, 
 when I say that I approach it, as I should the solution of a problem 
 in the mathematics, without the smallest taint of party feeling, and 
 with no other view whatsoever than a desire to discover the truth, upon 
 a question of great and universal concernment. 
 
 The first circumstance to which I would solicit the attention of the 
 Committee, as lying at the root of the matter, is the progress of agri- 
 culture during the long period of the last war I mean from the year 
 1792 downwards. The commencement of hostilities in 1793 produced 
 the stagnation of trade and manufactures which usually accompanies 
 a transition from peace to war; but these difficulties were of uncommon 
 short duration, and the brilliant success of our arms at sea, the capture 
 of some of the enemy's colonies, the revolt of others, and the crippled 
 state of his mercantile resources at home, from internal confusion, 
 speedily diminished his commerce in an extraordinary degree, aug- 
 menting our own in nearly the same proportion. As his conquests or 
 influence extended over other nations possessed of trade or colonial 
 establishments, these in their turn became exposed to our maritime 
 hostility, and lost their commerce and their plantations; so that in a 
 very short time this country obtained a mercantile and colonial mo- 
 nopoly altogether unprecedented, even in the most successful of her 
 former wars. The consequence was, a sudden extension of our manu- 
 facturing industry and wealth; and a proportionate improvement in 
 our asriculture. But although this effect began to be perceivable soon 
 after the first successes of the war. it was not fully produced until a 
 few years had elapsed, and a number of circumstances, in some 
 measure accidental, happened to coincide with those which might more 
 reasonably have been expected to occur during the course of the war, 
 in promoting, I might almost say in forcing, the cultivation of the 
 country. I should be disposed to take the ten years from 1797 to 
 1S08, as the period when all those circumstances, of what nature 
 soever, concurred to produce the same ell'ect. It will be worth the 
 attention of the Committee to observe how singularly this period is
 
 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 267 
 
 filled with events, all tending one way, all bearing upon the extension 
 of agriculture. 
 
 The French commerce and colonies had heen previously destroyed; 
 and in 1797, 1798, and 1799, those of Spain and Holland shared the 
 same fate. About this time our monopoly might be said to have 
 reached its height. But several accidental events now concurred with 
 those results of the war, and influenced the progress of cultivation in 
 a visible manner. The scarcity of wheat in 1790, and all sorts ol 
 grain in 1799 and 1SOO, raised the prices so much as to force a vast 
 portion of land into cultivation. In 1797, and still more after 1SOO, 
 lands were broken up which had never before known the plough, and 
 many wastes were taken in, the tillage of which prudence would per- 
 haps never have authorized. Somewhat of the same effect was thus 
 produced which arose from the destruction of the principal French 
 West Indian colonies early in the lato war. The sudden diminution in 
 the supply of sugar raised its price beyond all example, and occasioned 
 a vast extent of new land to be cleared and planted, promoting at the 
 same time the culture of the old plantations. The African slave trade, 
 and the conquest of the Dutch, French, and Spanish settlements, with 
 the consequent influx of British capital, facilitated the progress of West 
 Indian agriculture, until, in the course of a few years, the blank 
 created by the commotions at St. Domingo and Guadaloupe was much 
 more than supplied; sugars fell as far below their ordinary price as 
 they had lately risen above it; all West Indian proprietors were dis- 
 tressed, and many utterly mined; the colonies, generally speaking, 
 were in a state nearly resembling the most suffering districts of the 
 mother country at the present time; and relief was only afforded by 
 the abandonment of many estates, chiefly such as were loaded wiih 
 debts and consisted of inferior lands, the supply being thus restored 
 to a level with the demand. I do not mention the cases as in all 
 respects parallel, but they agree in many of their principal circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Together with the scarcities of 1790 and 1SOO, the financial and 
 military operations of the war, concurretl to raise the prices of agricul- 
 tural produce. Those operations did not certainly create capital, or 
 multiply the number of mouths for consuming food; but they collected 
 capital in masses to be expended less economically in feeding a number 
 of persons more carelessly than the same individuals would have been 
 supported by part of the same capital, had it been left in the hands of 
 private persons. I desire to be understood as casting no reflection 
 upon the administration of the revenue appropriated to the demands 
 of the war, because it is quite unnecessary at present to express my 
 opinion upon this point. Every one must admit that a given sum in 
 the hands of government, even of the most economical ministers, 
 especially if allotted to meeting the various pressing exigencies of 
 warfare, must be expended with much less care and parsimony than 
 the same sums appropriated to the uses of private families under all 
 the checks imposed by individual prudence. The tendency of such 
 a national expenditure unquestionably is, to raise prices above their
 
 268 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 
 
 natural level, for a time at least, and thus to force cultivation forward, 
 although, in a long course of years, the same capital in the hands of 
 the community would have been much more augmented, and would 
 gradually and healthfully have increased the production of the country 
 in a greater, but not in a disproportionate degree. It is not, however, 
 for its effect in stimulating agriculture that any man will be disposed 
 to quarrel with the war and its expenditure. Had it no other sins to 
 answer for, this might well be forgiven. 
 
 While the circumstances which I have mentioned were disposing 
 men to extend the cultivation of the kingdom, an event occurred, which 
 in its consequences mightily facilitated this operation. I allude to the 
 stoppage of the Bank of England, in the early part of 1797. The 
 alarm in which that extrordinary measure originated, very speedily 
 subsided; and with the restoration of confidence, came a disposition 
 to accommodate, on the part of bankers and other dealers in money 
 and credit wholly unexampled. The Bank of England soon increased 
 its issues; and the numbers of country banks were everywhere aug- 
 mented. In districts where no such establishment had ever before 
 been known, they were to be found actively engaged in discounting 
 and lending and in issuing their own notes. In places too small to 
 support a bank, there were agents appointed by banks fixed at some 
 distance: or a shopkeeper or tradesman, added to his usual and regular 
 calling, the new employment of cashing bills and passing notes. It 
 is true that the check which had now been removed from the great 
 Bank in London, still operated to a certain extent upon the minor 
 dealers in credit, thus scattered over the country; they were obliged 
 to pay, if required, in Bank of England paper, although the issuers 
 of that paper were not compelled to pay in specie. But this was 
 rather a nominal than a real restraint; for if the holders of country 
 bank paper could not obtain gold in exchange, they preferred coarse 
 notes with the names of Mr. or Sir John such-a-one, whom they knew, 
 to notes somewhat better engraved, but worth just as little, and with 
 the names of a governor and company and a Mr. Newland, whom 
 they knew nothing about so that the country banks enjoyed the same 
 facility with the bank in London, of increasing their issues; and they 
 used it with much less reserve. Hence the unlimited accommodation 
 which they afforded to farmers, and generally to all speculators in 
 land. They assisted all adventurers more or less, but adventurers in 
 land most of all, because they had better security to give, and were 
 supposed to be engaged in a less hazardous line of trade. I must 
 here repeat the remark I made upon the tendency of the war to pro- 
 mote cultivation. If the stoppage of the bank had produced no worse 
 effects than throwing dormant capital into circulation, and affording a 
 stimulus to industry, especially to agriculture, I should have little to 
 say against that measure nay, it might have been rather beneficial 
 than hurtful, at least in this point of view, had the accommodation 
 which it afforded been withdrawn more gradually, and at all events, 
 not at the particular moment, when perhaps the state of things required 
 it to be still farther extended.
 
 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 269 
 
 Another circumstance to which I shall advert, also occurred within 
 the period in question, between 1797 and 1SOS, I mean the great 
 extension of our colonial possessions. The value of those establish- 
 ments is, I believe, somewhat underrated in this country: not that we 
 are slow to parade their importance in several particulars on the 
 contrary we are prone to magnify them in our accounts of exports and 
 imports, and of the quantity of tonnage, and the number of seamen 
 employed in our trade; but we seldom, if ever, reflect on the vast 
 effects produced by them upon the agriculture of the mother country. 
 In promoting this, their wealth operates both through the channels of 
 commerce and of remittances, almost as directly as the riches of one 
 district of this island expand themselves over and fertilize another less 
 wealthy territory in its neighbourhood. The conquest and rapid culti- 
 vation of the Dutch colonies, to take the most remarkable instance, 
 may be traced in its effects upon many a once barren tract of land in 
 the northern parts of Great Britain, where by the names of the farms 
 and of their occupiers you may be reminded of those lucrative specu- 
 lations in Surinam, Demerara, and Berbice, to which the agriculture 
 of the mother country owed these accessions. 
 
 The last circumstance I shall mention as falling within the same 
 period, is the completion of our commercial and manufacturing mo- 
 nopoly, by the destruction of almost all other trade and peaceful 
 industry, the final result of Buonaparte's continental and military 
 system. In the end, indeed, we felt the effects of this prodigious 
 attempt, as I shall presently have occasion to state; but for some time 
 it only consummated the ruin of our competitors, and gave new re- 
 sources to our seaport and manufacturing towns. The effects of this 
 increase upon the industry of the country, at a period when men were 
 singularly prone to farming speculations, cannot easily be overrated. 
 We are apt to suppose the sphere of such influence much more con- 
 tracted than it really is. If any one is desirous of perceiving how 
 widely it extends, I think I can furnish him with a medium through 
 which he may view it. When the measures of the enemy, which 
 began with the Berlin and Milan Decrees, had, through the co-operation 
 of our own Orders in Council, succeeded in crippling the trade of almost 
 all our great towns, the distresses of the merchant and manufacturer 
 affected not merely the farmer in his neighbourhood, but lowered the 
 cattle and corn markets to a great distance, so that fat beasts were sc,ld 
 at very low prices, one hundred, and even one hundred and fifty 
 miles from the manufacturing districts in Lancashire and the West 
 Hiding of Yorkshire, in consequence of the distresses prevailing over 
 those parts of the country. In like manner, it is evident that the 
 earlier events of the war, which suddenly promoted the wealth of the 
 great towns, tended as rapidly to augment the cultivation of i-vi-n ilu: 
 remote provinces. 
 
 Now, sir, having ascertained the existence of so many and such 
 powerful causes, uniting their forces in one direction, during the period 
 I have mentioned, and all tending manifestly to promote the agriculture 
 of the country, some of them by tempting men to embark in fanning 
 
 23*
 
 270 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 
 
 concerns, others by furnishing them with the means of speculation, 
 even if we do not take into the account such circumstances as the 
 general progress of the arts and the depreciation in the value of the 
 circulating medium, and the consequent rise in the money price of 
 produce, which I am very far from underrating, but only pass over for 
 the present as operating less exclusively upon the cultivation of land 
 than the other circumstances which I have enumerated, I say even if 
 these considerations are omitted, enough has been shown to prove that 
 a start must have been made in the productive powers of this island, 
 quite unexampled in any equal period of its former history. When, 
 on the other hand, I reflect upon the nature of the causes which I 
 have enumerated, and find that most of them are of sudden occurrence, 
 and that their combination in the short space of about ten years was 
 accidental; when, moreover, I perceive that the most material of them 
 were of a temporary duration, and could not remain long to support 
 the great cultivation which they had occasioned, I am disposed to 
 think that I have got hold of a principle upon which something like 
 an over-trading in agriculture, and a consequent redundance of produce, 
 may be inferred to have happened, how difficult soever it may be to 
 ascertain the amount of this excess by any strict calculation. In truth 
 I am little inclined to resort to estimates upon the present question; 
 where circumstances are clearly proved to have existed, the natural 
 operation of which plainly was such as I have described, it is unneces- 
 sary to seek among statistical returns for evidence of effects which we 
 know must have been produced. I have heard of conjectures as to 
 the number of acres enclosed, during the ten years I am referring to, 
 in which there may have been 1200 enclosure bills passed. Some of 
 my honourable friends near me, I know, have estimated this amount at 
 two millions, which I mention not so much from any reliance upon the 
 accuracy of the statement, as out of respect for them, and because this 
 admission is at variance with their own doctrine, that there has been 
 no excessive cultivation. But it is evident that such an estimate, even 
 if correct to an acre, would by no means show the increase of produc- 
 tion, for a good deal of the land enclosed by act of parliament was 
 formerly cultivated in common field; and, on the other hand, the im- 
 provements in the cultivation of the old enclosures have probably done 
 more to augment the whole agricultural produce, than all the new lands 
 that have been taken in. If, however, we take the total amount, every 
 thing included, to be equal to the produce of two millions of acres 
 added to the former produce, and if it be true that the population has 
 only increased two millions during the same period, there will appear 
 to have been an increase of nearly six millions of quarters in the sup- 
 ply, and only an increase in the permanent demand, in the proportion 
 of two millions. But, as I have already said, these estimates are not 
 to be trusted either way, and I had much rather rest upon the broad 
 principle furnished by a reference to the known events in the history 
 of the late war, down to the year 1S08. The improvements in most 
 parts of the country have been going on so visibly, that the most 
 careless observer must have been struck by them. Not only wastes
 
 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 271 
 
 have disappeared for miles and miles, giving place to houses, fences, 
 and crops; not only have even the most inconsiderable commons, the 
 very village greens, and the little stripes of sward by the way side, 
 been, in many places, subjected to division and exclusive ownership, 
 and cut up into corn-fields in the rage for farming; not only have 
 stubborn soils been forced to bear crops by mere weight of metal, by 
 sinking money in the earth, as it has been called, but the land that 
 formerly grew something has been fatigued with labour, and loaded 
 with capital, until it yielded much more; the work both of men and 
 cattle has been economized, new skill has been applied, and a more 
 dexterous combination of different kinds of husbandry been practised, 
 until, without at all comprehending the waste lands wholly added to 
 the productive territory of the island, it may be safely said, not per- 
 haps that two blades of grass now grow where only one grew before, 
 but I am sure, that five grow where four used to be; and that this 
 kingdom which foreigners were wont to taunt as a mere manufacturing 
 and trading country, inhabited by a shopkeeping nation, is in reality 
 for its size, by far the greatest agricultural state in the world. 
 
 Previous to the year 1810 or 1811, no great effect appears to have 
 been felt in the corn market from all this system of improvement. 
 The measures to increase our produce had not begun fully to operate, 
 and the new enclosures had not yielded their due returns. The crop 
 of 1810 was not a very good one, and that of 1811 was extremely 
 bad. But about 1812, when the new cultivation and the improve- 
 ments in farms generally, may be supposed to have produced their 
 full effect, there began a series of events, some of them accidental and 
 beyond human foresight to anticipate, others less strange perhaps in 
 themselves,but in their union scarcely more to be expected, all operating 
 in the same direction, and that direction the very opposite, as far as 
 regards agriculture, to the line in which the no less unparalleled com- 
 bination of circumstances already mentioned, had been operating in 
 the preceding years. The harvest of 1812 was a very abundant one; 
 that of 1813, I believe, exceeded any that had ever been known: and 
 the crop of 1814 was not much inferior. Hut the political events of 
 those three years had an influence still more important upon the mar- 
 kets. Here I must take leave to state how widely I differ with my 
 honourable friend the member for Essex,* respecting the effects of the 
 peace. In the able and luminous speech with which he introduced 
 this subject to the House, and in which he showed at once the greatest 
 industry, talent, and moderation, he contended that the termination 
 of hostilities could not be assigned as the cause of the depression in 
 prices, because those prices had begun to fall during the war; and he 
 observed in confirmation of his position, that after the former treaties 
 of peace, agricultural produce had risen. The facts upon which he 
 relied when taken altogether, far from supporting his doctrine, furnish 
 me with a satisfactory answer to it. After the peace of Paris, it is 
 true, wheat rose from 3G*. to 41*. the quarter, in 1763, and to 42.v. (></. 
 
 Mr. (now Lord) Western.
 
 272 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 
 
 on an average of five years, ending 1767. So, after the peace of Ver- 
 sailles, it rose 55. the quarter. But the statements upon which my 
 honourable friend relied, as decisive in his favour, were taken from the 
 period in question, viz. the year IS 13. In January of that year, the 
 market price of wheat was 120*., and in November it had fallen to 
 75-s. The victualling contracts of Portsmouth were made in January 
 at 123*. Wd. ; in November at 67s. lOd. Those of Plymouth, in 
 February at 1215. 9d., in September at 865. Those of Deptford, in 
 February for flour per sack at 1005. 3d., in November at 655. Now 
 I beg the committee's attention to these facts, because when coupled 
 with the well known events of the year 1813, they clearly refute my 
 honourable friend's argument, pretended to be built upon them. In 
 January and February wheat and flour were high; in September they 
 had fallen very considerably, owing, partly no doubt, to the very 
 abundant harvest reaped during the interval, but in no small degree 
 owing to the important change in public affairs, which had taken place 
 during the same interval. The destruction of Buonaparte's grand 
 army had been effected the winter before, and had laid the foundation 
 of the deliverance of Europe, but that happy event had not been 
 completed. The most gigantic enterprise which unprincipled force 
 had ever attempted in modern times, had been defeated by a lucky 
 concurrence of accidents with the violence that gave birth to the 
 project; but much of its author's power still remained unbroken, and 
 no man could foresee that the blind fury which had borne him into 
 jeopardy, would still hurry him to ruin. At all events, a new and a 
 desperate struggle was inevitable, and the great prize of peace on the 
 one side, or universal empire on the other, was to be fought for once 
 more, in the ensuing campaign. In the spring and summer of 1813, 
 this battle was fought; and the enemy, after incredible efforts of gal- 
 lantry and skill, was repulsed but nothing more. Peace seemed 
 considerably more probable, therefore, in September, than it had been 
 in January; but it was not certain. The improvement in our pros- 
 pects, however, co-operated with the harvest, and prices were lowered 
 from 1225. to 865. Soon after this period came the decisive battle of 
 Leipsic; peace was now certain, and all that remained to be settled 
 was the terms upon which it should be made, and the degree of secu- 
 rity which should attend it; for the struggle which followed could be 
 said to decide nothing more. Accordingly, in the interval between 
 September and November, prices had fallen from 86 to 68, in round 
 numbers. Contractors could no longer expect the same terms when 
 in all likelihood this was their last bidding. Government was not 
 pressed as before, when its difficulties were so nearly at an end; and 
 the market felt the effects not only of an extraordinary crop, but of the 
 approaching times of peace, when the demands of government should 
 be withdrawn, and the supplies of the continent poured in. No man 
 who attends to these facts and dates can entertain a reasonable doubt 
 that the fall of prices was in some degree connected with the approach- 
 ing termination of the war. 
 
 In truth, sir, it is impossible to overlook the tendency of such a
 
 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 273 
 
 change as the peace brought about in all the great markets of agricul- 
 tural produce. A sudden diminution in the expenditure of government, 
 to the amount of above fifty millions, could not be effected without 
 greatly deranging all markets, both for manufactures and produce 
 directly; and by affecting the markets for manufactures, it must also 
 have influenced circuitously those in which the farmer is more imme- 
 diately interested. To take only a few specimens of these effects: 
 Can it be denied that the stoppage of the exportation of grain, pro- 
 visions, and even forage, to the peninsula, had an influence in lowering 
 the prices of those articles at home? When orders are no longer given 
 for clothing in Yorkshire, aud arms in Warwickshire, does the change 
 which throws so many manufacturers out of employment produce 
 no diminution in the demand for food, and no increase in the levy 
 of parish rates ? Look at the effects of the government retiring from 
 the Irish provision market, now that three-fourths of the navy are 
 dismantled. Beside the accounts from the sister kingdom, every 
 gentleman connected with the north and west of England knows, that 
 last summer and autumn the droves of Irish cattle poured through 
 Liverpool, Bristol, and the Welsh ports, covered the roads for miles; 
 and that the price of butchers' meat, and the rents of grazing farms, 
 which had till then kept up, notwithstanding the fall of grain and of 
 corn lands, began to be sensibly affected. I state these circumstances 
 with the more satisfaction because they are in their nature temporary, 
 and we are led to a somewhat more comfortable prospect by the con- 
 sideration, that whatever part of the present distresses is ascribable to 
 the change from war to peace, may reasonably be expected to diminish 
 every day, at least as soon as the results of the peace shall enable the 
 general trade of the country to resume its natural and accustomed 
 channels; and shall supply the blank occasioned directly and cir- 
 cuitously in the demands for produce, by the diminished expenditure 
 of government. 
 
 The next circumstance to which I shall advert as materially opera- 
 ting against agriculture, is the distress in the commercial world during 
 the latter years of the war. It is very certain that the effects of the 
 fatal year 1S10, continue to be felt at this day in the mercantile world. 
 The foundations were then laid of many failures, which have only 
 been delayed by the natural efforts of unfortunate men to ward off a 
 blow they could not escape; efforts which it is impossible very harshly 
 to blame, although undoubtedly the delay of the crash has in most 
 instances only rendered it more pernicious to creditors, and extended 
 its effect more widely, occasioning, perhaps, several failures instead 
 of one. The difficulties of 1812 are fresh in the recollection of the 
 committee, and are still working their effects in many parts of the 
 country, although the repeal of the Orders in Council, by enabling us 
 to export goods, which were all paid for to the amount of seven or 
 eight millions, afforded a most seasonable and important relief, and 
 enabled capitalists to lower their stock on hand in a great proportion. 
 That stock, however, began to increase during the unhappy con- 
 tinuance of the American war; and the peace, unexpectedly made, in
 
 274 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 
 
 Europe, followed by the treaty with America, soon produced an effect 
 to which I must request the serious attention of the committee, because 
 I believe its nature and extent are by no means well understood. 
 After the cramped state in which the enemy's measures, and our own 
 retaliation (as we termed it), had kept our trade for some years, when 
 the events of spring 1814 suddenly opened the continent, a rage 
 for exporting goods of every kind burst forth, only to be explained 
 by reflecting on the previous restrictions we had been labouring under, 
 and only to be equalled (though not in extent), by some of the mer- 
 cantile delusions connected with South American speculations. Every 
 thing that could be shipped was sent off; all the capital that could be 
 laid hold of was embarked. The frenzy, I can call it nothing less, 
 after the experience of 1806 and 1810, descended to persons in the 
 humblest circumstances, and the furthest removed, by their pursuits, 
 from commercial cares. It may give the committee some idea of this 
 disease, if I state what I know to have happened in one or two places. 
 Not only clerks and labourers, but menial servants, engaged the little 
 sums which they had been laying up for a provision against old age 
 and sickness; persons went round tempting them to adventure in the 
 trade to Holland, and Germany, and the Baltic; they risked their mite 
 in the hopes of boundless profits; it went with the millions of the 
 more regular traders: the bubble soon burst, like its predecessors of 
 the South Sea, the Mississippi, and Buenos Ayres; English goods were 
 selling for much less in Holland and the North of Europe, than in 
 London and Manchester; in most places they were lying a dead weight 
 without any sale at all; and either no returns whatever were received, 
 or pounds came back for thousands that had gone forth. The great 
 speculators broke; the middling ones lingered out a precarious existence, 
 deprived of all means of continuing their dealings either at home or 
 abroad; the poorer dupes of the delusion had lost their little hoards, 
 and went upon the parish the next mishap that befell them; but the 
 result of the whole has been much commercial distress a caution now 
 absolutely necessary in trying new adventures a prodigious diminu- 
 tion in the demand for manufactures, and indirectly a serious defalca- 
 tion in the effectual demand for the produce of land. 
 
 The peace with America has produced somewhat of a similar ef- 
 fect, though I am very far from placing the vast exports which it 
 occasioned upon the same footing with those to the European market 
 the year before; both because ultimately the Americans will pay, 
 which the exhausted state of the continent renders very unlikely: 
 and because it was well worth while to incur a loss upon the first 
 exportation, in order, by the glut, to stifle in the cradle those rising 
 manufactures in the United States, which the war had forced into 
 existence contrary to the natural course of things. But, in the mean- 
 time, the enormous amount, of, I believe, eighteen millions worth of 
 goods were exported to North America in one year; I am informed 
 nearly sixteen millions went through the port of Liverpool alone; 
 and, for a considerable part of this, no returns have been received, 
 while still more of it must have been selling at a very scanty profit.
 
 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 275 
 
 The immediate effect has been a sensible increase of the difficulties 
 which I have already described as flowing from the unexpected open- 
 ing of the European market in the impoverished and unsettled state of 
 the continent. 
 
 And now it was, when a general commercial distress began to 
 prevail, that the consequences of our paper circulation, and the hank- 
 ing operations connected with it, not gradually as had been expected, 
 but almost instantaneously developed themselves. Whether the 
 change of measures, which I am about to mention as one of the 
 principal, if not the very first cause of our present sullerings, began 
 with the country banks, or the bank of England; whether it was the 
 necessary consequence of the difficulties which were pressing upon 
 trade, and which, at any rate, it mightily increased, or was the chief 
 cause of those difficulties; whether or not blame is imputable to any 
 persons or bodies corporate, I will not stop to inquire, for it is wholly 
 immaterial to the present investigation; and when I mention certain 
 known facts in one order rather than another, I do so without intend- 
 ing to assert that they were connected together. The bank of Eng- 
 land not very slowly limited its discounts, and diminished its issues 
 of paper about three millions. At one period, indeed, the amount of 
 notes in circulation had exceeded that to which they were now 
 reduced, by six millions; but the average had been for some time 
 about three millions higher. The country banks acting less upon 
 system, and more under the influence of alarm, lessened their discounts 
 in a much greater degree. A single failure would stop all such trans- 
 actions over a whole district, and I could mention one large stoppage 
 which made it difficult, for a length of time, to discount a bill any- 
 where in three or four counties. The persons who felt this change most 
 severely Were of course those \vho had been speculating in any way, but 
 above all others, speculators in land; those who had either purchased 
 or improved beyond their actual means, upon the expectation of that 
 credit and accomodation being continued, which had enabled them to 
 commence their operations. Ordinary traders have much greater 
 facilities in the money market; and their speculations are much more 
 speedily terminated. The improver of land has to deal with property 
 not easily convertible into money, and his adventures extend neces- 
 sarily over a long course of years. Persons in this situation soon 
 found their borrowed capital withdrawn; when the fall of produce 
 made it difficult for them to pay the interest, they were suddenly called 
 upon for the principal; they had gotten into a situation which no 
 prudence could have enabled them to avoid, because it was the result 
 of events which no sagacity could have foreseen; they had for many 
 ye;irs been tempted to speculate by a facility of obtaining capital or 
 credit, winch in a month or two was utterly withdrawn; and before 
 the least warning had been given, either by the course of events, or 
 by the dealers in money and accommodation, a support was removed, 
 which the most cautions of men might well have expected lo be con- 
 tinued indefinitely, or at any rale to be gradually removed. I beg 
 leave in illustration of this mutter, to remind the committee ho\v those
 
 276 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 
 
 undertakings have been carried on, which I before described as ex- 
 tending so greatly the agriculture of the country. A man of small 
 fortune, or a farmer making considerable profits by the high prices of 
 the period I have so often alluded to, saw an opportunity of making 
 a desirable purchase, upon an enclosure or a sale in his neighbour- 
 hood. He had scraped together a couple of thousand pounds, perhaps; 
 but the sum required for buying, and then improving the land, was 
 four or five. The banker supplied this difference, and by his accom- 
 modations enabled some middle man, trading in credit, to supply it, 
 and the cultivator had every reason to hope he should in a few years, 
 be able to repay it, by the continued prosperity of farming concerns. 
 At any rate he reckoned upon paying the interest and not being called 
 upon for the principal, in security of which he probably deposited the 
 title-deeds of his purchase as a pledge. The extension of cultivation 
 caused by these very operations, together with the other circumstances 
 to which I have referred, rapidly lowers the price of all produce; the 
 alarm of money dealers begins to spread; hardly able to pay the inte- 
 rest, which is in reality a fourth part more than it was while the cur- 
 rency was depreciated 25 per cent., he is called upon to pay up the 
 principal itself; destitute of anything that can be turned into money, 
 he is fain to abandon his purchase, with all the improvements which 
 his savings and his toil have made upon it; and the lender finds him- 
 self in hardly a better situation, without the means of obtaining 
 payment, and with title-deeds in his hands, which he can turn to no 
 account, unless he brings the land into the market. Now, the cer- 
 tainty of such a measure lowering its price prevents this step from 
 being taken; and accordingly, great as the distress has been, very 
 little land has been actually sold; not so much as ought to have been, 
 is thrown out of cultivation; good money, to use the common expres- 
 sion, is thrown after bad; the money-dealer becomes, from necessity, 
 a land-jobber; and the distress continues pushing its shoots in all 
 directions, round the whole circle of trade, until, by reaction, the 
 farmer suffers again indirectly, and the total amount of suffering is, 
 if I may so speak, augmented by its universality, and the connection 
 of its parts. Nor should I be at all surprised, if things were to grow 
 worse before they got better; at least I am very certain that the 
 price of land will be lower before it is higher, from the undoubted 
 fact of many sales that must take place having been delayed as long 
 as possible, in the vain hope of the necessity being evaded. 
 
 In referring to the state of credit and circulation, I have purposely 
 avoided dwelling upon the great evils that have resulted from the 
 fluctuations in the value of the currency, not because I underrate 
 them, but because they only affect one class of sufferers from the 
 present distress, I mean those who have made bargains or formed 
 calculations for time; such as persons taking long leases, or borrow- 
 ing money at a fixed rate of interest, or speculating upon making 
 sales at a future period. Of these classes I shall say a word or two 
 by-and-by. But there is a circumstance affecting all classes, and of 
 which it is quite impossible to exaggerate the importance, in account-
 
 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 277 
 
 ing for the changes that have recently afflicted the agriculture of the 
 kingdom I mean the state of our finances, the complete revolution 
 which the last twenty-five years have effected in the revenue and expen- 
 diture of the country. 
 
 During that period our revenue has increased from fifteen to about 
 sixty-six millions; our expenditure in one year exceeded one hundred 
 and twenty-five millions; this year of peace it is to be above seventy- 
 two millions, and no hopes are held Out of its being permanently 
 below sixty-five. That such a prodigious change could be wrought 
 in the system of taxation and of public credit, without seriously affect- 
 ing the landed interest, from which so large a proportion of the taxes 
 is drawn, no man will for a moment suppose. But I believe few 
 have formed to themselves distinct ideas of the manner in which 
 excessive taxation has been operating on agriculture, and very inade- 
 quate notions are, I am sure, entertained of the amount of that opera- 
 tion. It is not, indeed, very easy to trace it; and to estimate precisely 
 how much of the pressure falls exclusively upon the cultivator would 
 be impossible. But I shall take the liberty of submitting to you such 
 means of approximation as I have been able to find, aware of the jus- 
 tice of an observation made this night by the member for Surrey,* 
 that by communicating freely the ideas which have struck each of us 
 upon this great question, we may hope for mutual correction and in- 
 struction. 
 
 I shall suppose a farm of '100 acres of fair good land, yielding a 
 rent of from 500 to 600 a-year, managed according to the husbandry 
 practised in the northern counties, with which only I can profess any 
 particular acquaintance. It will require for a four years' course, 200 
 acres being in corn, 100 fallow, and 100 in hay and grass, fourteen 
 plough horses; and supposing a saddle horse, and a servant, and a 
 dog to be paid for, with a farm-house of twelve windows, the assessed 
 taxes will amount to 22, 8s. a-year. This is a clear addiiion to the 
 expenses of 1792, with which I am making the comparison. I pass 
 over the income tax, as not peculiar to farmers, though it has been 
 peculiarly oppressive to them, wherever the estimated exceeds the 
 real profits. But the principal increase of expense has been upon 
 the labour. The wages of the nine regular men servants who must 
 be employed, have risen since 1792, from 30 to 50 each, but I will 
 put the rise only at 15, making in the whole 135. Besides this, 
 we must allow for the rise of the day labour required in spring and 
 fall. Upon the 200 acres in corn, this will amount to a rise from 10s. 
 an acre to I5.y., or 50 in all; upon the other in hay and grass, the 
 rise will be from 5.v. an acre to 7.v. G</., and the same upon the 100 
 acres of fallow, making an addition of 25, or 75 for the whole 
 increase upon day labour. Two women servants must be allowed 
 and their wages are more increased in proportion than those of men, 
 principally, 1 believe, from the unwillingness of farmers' wives and 
 daughters to work as they used to do before the more flourishing 
 
 * Mr. H. Sumner. 
 VOL. I. 24
 
 273 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS 
 
 times; but take the rise on this head only at 10 and we have the 
 total increase on labour 220. Blacksmiths' and carpenters' bills 
 have in like manner been raised, certainly not less than 15 each 
 upon such a farm as I am supposing; and the rise on saddlers' bills 
 cannot be estimated at less than 10, making upon these bills a rise 
 of 40, which added to the former heads, gives the total increase 
 in the expenses of cultivating such a farm, as equal to 282, 8s., inde- 
 pendent of the great rise on lime and all sorts of manure. 
 
 Now, I admit that we have no right to set down the whole or 
 nearly the whole of this large sum to the taxes which have been im- 
 posed since 1792, but a great part of it manifestly does arise from 
 those taxes. Whatever part arises from the increased prices of grain 
 and other provisions may be deducted, and will fall again with those 
 prices. Whatever remains must be ascribed to the taxes chiefly. 
 Above 22 of the sum comes from direct taxation. At least one- 
 half of the rise on the saddlers' bills, or 5 more, is owing to the same 
 cause. But a considerable proportion of the grand item of labour is 
 imputable to the taxes also. For let us only reflect on the nature of 
 the duties which have been imposed. Many of them affect articles 
 of prime necessity, as soap, salt, leather, and candles, all of which 
 are ranked among necessaries of life by the writers on these subjects, 
 and, what is better authority, are felt to be such by the consumers; 
 taxes upon all of which are allowed by those writers to affect directly 
 the price of labour. Now the tax on leather has been doubled within 
 the last four years, being raised from three half pence, at which it 
 stood before the war [Here the Chancellor of the Exchequer said 
 across the table "And ever since the reign of Queen Anne"] to 
 three pence, the present duty. The duty on salt, which in 17S2, and 
 I believe up to 1792, was only Wd. a bushel, had been raised pre- 
 vious to 1S06, to 15s., the present duty. And candles have in the same 
 period been taxed considerably. But these articles are not the only 
 ones which may be reckoned necessaries, and are subjected to addi- 
 tional duties. In most parts of England, beer is to be classed in this 
 list, from the universal custom of drinking it which prevails, and the 
 duties upon it most seriously affect the farmer as a consumer of it, 
 besides their pernicious tendency against his interest as a grower. 
 The duty on malt has been raised from 10s. Id. per quarter to 34s. 
 Sd., of which 165. is war duty; that on beer since 1802 has been in- 
 creased from 5s. Hd. per barrel to 9*. l$d., or about 4s., while that 
 on spirits has been raised since 1792 from Id. to 1*. 9d. per gallon, 
 or 1*. 2d. additional. The total revenue collected from these duties 
 is 12,350,000, by which the land suffers directly in proportion to the 
 whole amount, and indirectly in proportion as its cultivators are 
 consumers of the manufactured article. But the price of agricultural 
 labour is affected likewise by the duties of custom on many imported 
 goods, which long habit has rendered scarcely less essential than 
 some which I have enumerated as articles of first necessity. Of this 
 class is sugar, upon which the heaviest taxes known in the history of 
 finance, are laid. I believe, indeed, there are many persons who
 
 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 279 
 
 would rather go without soap than sugar; and this is now subject to 
 a duty of 30.9. per cwt., instead of 15*., at which it was taxed before 
 1793. It must also be observed that whatever prohibiting or protect- 
 ing duties have been laid upon foreign manufactures of articles used 
 in clothing, these fall directly upon the labourer, and in so much tend 
 to raise his wages for the benefit, not certainly of the farmer, but the 
 manufacturer. It is therefore evident that much of the augmentation 
 in the expense of working a farm, a considerable portion of the sum 
 of 220, which I have stated to have been added since 1792 to that 
 large branch of a farmer's expenditure, is chargeable to the taxes; 
 and a portion also of the sum of 35, the part of the rise in the car- 
 penter's and other bills not directly affected by taxes, must also be 
 charged to the same account. It is impossible to state with any de- 
 gree of accuracy what the total amount of the increase of taxation 
 has been upon these items; but that it must have been considerable, 
 no one can reasonably doubt; and I beg to warn gentlemen against 
 underrating it, from the fall in the rate of wages that has lately taken 
 place. Labour has indeed come down; and in my opinion, a good 
 deal more than was to be wished, I mean a good deal more than the 
 fall of other prices justified. This fall must have resulted from the 
 general distress of the country, and the number of hands in conse- 
 quence everywhere thrown out of employment; but it is no sort of 
 proof that the present is the natural and healthy state of wages; or 
 that they will long remain so low; or that the fall in the price of 
 provisions has permanently reduced wages to their level before the 
 war; and therefore it is no kind of evidence that the increase in the 
 expense of cultivation has arisen from the rise in prices alone, and not 
 also from the increase of taxation. 
 
 But it may be said that the taxes have not fallen exclusively upon 
 the farmer, and that he only suffers in common with the rest of the 
 country. Now, to this I shall offer, I think, the most satisfactory 
 answers. It must be remembered, in the first place, that part of the 
 taxes fall directly and exclusively upon ihe landed interest. Some of 
 the assessed taxes, and the enormous malt, beer, and spirit duties are 
 clearly of this description. But next observe how differently the farmer 
 is circumstanced in these times from the other parts of the community, 
 with respect to the rise in wages, produced partly by the taxes. The 
 commodity in which he deals is on the decline in point of price from 
 over-cultivation; ho cannot, therefore, throw the tax upon the consu- 
 mer. If manufactured goods are in high demand, the customer pays 
 the duties to which the manufacturer may be subject, either directly 
 or indirectly by the rise in wages caused by those taxes. If those 
 goods are falling in price, the tax presses upon the manufacturer 
 himself. Now this is, and for some time past has been, in a peculiar 
 manner, the state of the farmer, who indeed never has the means of 
 suddenly accommodating tho supply of his commodity to the dcmnnd, 
 with the nicety and despatch observable in the operations of trade 
 But, a still more material circumstance distinguishes the situation >f 
 the farmer from that of the manufacturer, relieving the latter at the
 
 280 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 
 
 expense of the former. I allude to the state of the law, which throws 
 upon the land the whole burthen of maintaining the poor, and reduces 
 the price of all labour below its natural level, at the sole expense of 
 the cultivator. It is well known to the committee, that whatever 
 may have been the intention of the legislature, (and the meaning of 
 the statute of Elizabeth is sufficiently plain,) yet from the defect in 
 the powers of the act, the money raised for the support of the poor is 
 paid entirely by the land. Persons in trade only pay in so far as they 
 are also owners of real property. Thus a manufacturer who is de- 
 riving ten or twelve thousand a-year from his trade, is rated as if he 
 only had a large building worth four or five hundred a-year beside 
 his dwelling-house, while his neighbour, who possesses a farm of the 
 same yearly value pays as much; that is, the man of ten thousand 
 a-year in trade, pays no more than the man of five hundred a-year in 
 land. Yet, only observe the difference between the two in their re- 
 lation to labour and to the poor. The farmer employs a few hands 
 the manufacturer a whole colony; the farmer causes no material 
 augmentation in the number of paupers the manufacturer multiplies 
 paupers by wholesale; the one supports the other makes paupers, 
 manufacturing them just as certainly, and in something of the same 
 proportion as he manufactures goods. The inequality of this distri- 
 bution is plain enough, but I am now speaking of it in its relation 
 chiefly to the subject of wages. From the abuse of the poor laws, it 
 has become the prevailing practice to support by parish relief, not 
 merely persons who are disabled from working by disease or age, but 
 those who, though in health, cannot earn enough to maintain them; 
 and, by a short-sighted policy wholly unaccountable, the custom has 
 spread very widely of keeping down the wages of labour by the appli- 
 cation of the poor-rates, as if anything could equal the folly of paying 
 rates rather than hire; of parting with the disposition of your own 
 money, and of paying for labour, not in proportion to your own de- 
 mand for that labour, but in proportion to some general average of 
 the district you chance to live in. I pass over the inevitable effect of 
 this arrangement in raising the total amount of the sums paid for 
 labour, and in throwing upon one farm the expenses of cultivating 
 another less favourably circumstanced; it is enough for my present 
 purpose to remark, that the whole effect of the system is to make the 
 land pay a sum yearly, levied in the most unequal manner, applied 
 in the least economical way, for the purpose of lowering the wages 
 generally, and lowering the wages of manufacturing as well as agri- 
 cultural labour. From this unquestionable position I draw two infer- 
 ences, I think equally undeniable, and bearing directly upon the sub- 
 ject of our present inquiry; the one is, that the effects of taxation in 
 raising the price of labour are not distributed equally over all classes 
 of the community, but fall exclusively upon the land, the land paying 
 for the rise which the taxes have occasioned, both in agricultural 
 labour, and in all other kinds of work the other is, that, even if the 
 fall in the price of provisions should apparently restore wages per- 
 manently to their former level, the real rate of wages would still be
 
 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 281 
 
 raised, and the real cost of cultivation be augmented, unless the 
 poor rates also were brought back to their former amount. The 
 sum now levied upon the land for this purpose, exceeds eight mil- 
 lions. Before the American war. it was less than two. I think I 
 have said enough to show how immediately, how severely, how ex- 
 clusively, the rise in the taxes from fifteen to sixty-six millions has 
 pressed upon agriculture; how impossible it is to expect substantial 
 relief as long as that pressure continues. 
 
 I have now, sir, I fear at a very unreasonable length, gone through 
 the causes which appear to have co-operated in producing our present 
 distresses; and I come at last to a consideration of the means by which 
 the evil may be remedied, or at least rendered supportable. In enter- 
 ing upon this part of the subject, I feel sensibly the delicacy of the 
 ground I am going to tread. No one ought without tiie most serious 
 examination of it, to venture an opinion which (from the respect paid 
 to our deliberations in this place) may have a material influence upon, 
 the fortunes of individuals, and, at any rate, may agitate their hopes 
 and fears in a crisis of general solicitude. I wish, therefore, to state 
 nothing that has not been suggested to my mind by very mature 
 and anxious deliberation; but whatever may appear justified by such 
 research, I think it my duty to propound, without the smallest regard 
 to personal considerations, or to the prejudices that may prevail in any 
 quarter. 
 
 And, first, I am afraid there is one class of persons who can hardly 
 expect effectual relief from any measures, or from any supposable 
 change of times; I mean those who have been trading largely in land 
 upon borrowed capital. They liave. speculated upon a continuance 
 of extravagant prices, and the fund is, in all likelihood, gone for ever, 
 out of which their debts \vere to have been repaid. The fall in the 
 market price of bullion is of itself a severe loss to such adventurers; 
 they have still to pay in money as before, when every hundred 
 pounds is really worth one hundred and twenty-five; they have to 
 pay as much money to their creditors as formerly, and they can only 
 receive three-fourths as much from their customers. I would fain 
 hope, however, that such is not the situation of the great bulk of 
 proprietors, to whom, perhaps, a permanent relief (and even to the 
 speculator a palliative) may possibly be found. Those who have 
 been expending large sums on bad land are in the worst state, and 
 I fear that a good deal which ought never to have been cultivated at 
 all, must be abandoned, and much grass land that should not have 
 been broken up, must be laid down again as well as circumstances 
 will permit, unquestionably at a great loss. The lowering of rents, 
 which has pretty generally taken place, can hardly be reckoned any 
 considerable relief, if other circumstances remain the same. It is a 
 severe loss to the landlord, a loss which he sustains alone of all who 
 have made time bargains; for no one hears of mortgagees or other 
 creditors giving np twenty-five per cent., either on principal or interest, 
 because the value of money has risen in that proportion; but to the 
 tenant it affords a very inadequate relief, for he is complaining of a
 
 282 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 
 
 fall in the price of his gross produce, of above three pounds an acre, 
 (supposing the produce to be three quarters of wheat per acre), and 
 all that the landlord can do for him is to take off five shillings an 
 acre, leaving him to struggle against a loss of fifty-five shillings. But 
 I shall now beg the attention of the committee to the different 
 measures which have been proposed, and in discussing these as well 
 as in submitting others to your consideration, I shall he guided by 
 the view which I have taken of the nature and causes of the evil. 
 
 The first of these remedies, in point of importance as well as of 
 time, is the Corn Bill of last session. Although that measure is no 
 longer a matter of discussion, yet as I had not the honour of a seat 
 in this house either when my honourable friend* brought forward 
 the bill of 1S04, or when he raised the importation price last year 
 from 635. 6d. to 80,?., I deem it more fair not to avoid the topic, but to 
 state my opinion frankly upon its merits, the more especially as it 
 has been the object of very strong disapprobation in many parts of 
 the country. I certainly am disposed to think favourably of it, 
 although I arn well aware how diffidently it becomes us to speak 
 upon a measure which has divided so widely the ablest men, both in 
 Parliament and out of doors, marshalling in almost equally formida- 
 ble array on the opposite sides of the dispute, the statesmen and the 
 political authors;! whose opinions upon such a subject are the most 
 entitled to respect. As it impossible, however, upon such a contro- 
 versy not to oppose great authorities, so it is some comfort that for the 
 same reason, one has the support also of eminent names; and this 
 emboldens me in stating, that I conceive the measure to be politic, 
 at the least as a palliative, or as affording the means of carrying the 
 country through difficulties, the greatest pressure of which we may 
 hope will only prove temporary. But then, I can by no means ex- 
 cuse the language of those who deride it merely because it is tem- 
 porary, or, as they term it, an expedient. If it enables us to get over 
 the existing evils, arising, in great part, from a transition to a new 
 state of things, it does a great permanent good; it saves much valua- 
 ble capital from being totally lost, much skill and labour already 
 bestowed, from being thrown away; and it may thus, even where it 
 fails in affording entire relief, be most important as preventing entire 
 ruin. A measure of this description is only in name one of a tempo- 
 rary nature; its operation is solid and lasting. I pass over its tending 
 to secure a constant and certain supply of food to the community; I 
 am speaking of it merely as a measure calculated for the relief of the 
 agricultural interests, and of all the branches of trade immediately de- 
 pendent upon them. In the same light may be regarded the extension 
 of the measure to some other kinds of agricultural produce, which is at 
 present before Parliament. 
 
 But I own I view, in a very different light, my honourable friend's 
 
 * Mr. Western. 
 
 f See on the one side, Mr. MaUhus's excellent tracts and on the other, the very 
 able dissussion of the corn bill of 1804, by Mr. Mill.
 
 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 283 
 
 proposition respecting bounties upon the exportation of corn. To 
 pass over every other objection to such a plan, it' there be any truth 
 in the positions which I think I have established, that the principal 
 causes of our distresses are the too rapid extension of cultivation, and 
 the intolerable weight of the taxes; surely it follows inevitably that 
 to force exportation by a bounty, would only perpetuate the one of 
 these causes, and increase the other. Indeed, I marvel that my hon- 
 ourable friend could have thought of such a measure in times like 
 the present. Why, its very essence is taxation, and to a vast amount 
 taxation upon the people of this country to make us sell corn cheap 
 to foreigners taxation upon the land already oppressed with bur- 
 thens. And how are such new sums to be levied? We have got 
 rid of the income tax that is some relief to the farmer. Does my 
 honourable friend wish this burthen to be once more imposed for the 
 relief of agriculture? Or does he peradventure desire to see the malt 
 tax again raised from 14*. to 30.?. in order to encourage the production 
 of grain? All that has ever been paid in bounties formerly, is a trifle 
 compared with the sums which this new scheme would require. In, 
 1814, for instance, the last year for which we have the return, the 
 whole of the bounties paid by government did not exceed 206,800 
 a sum, in all probability, very injudiciously bestowed, but still not 
 very ruinous in its amount. A corn bounty, when wheat is selling, 
 perhaps 20.9. a quarter higher in this country than in foreign markets, 
 would cost a million for every million of quarters taken out of the 
 home market: and each effect produced by this forced exportation, in 
 raising the price at home, would render the exportation more costly. 
 But nothing, in my humble opinion, can be worse founded than 
 another remedy suggested by my honourable friend; I mean the 
 exclusion of foreign corn from our warehouses, and the encourage- 
 ment to store our own grain in the public repositories. Have farmers 
 no barn yards or granaries of their own, in which they can keep their 
 corn until the market is favourable? Are the crops in greater danger 
 of rats there than in the king's warehouses? But it is pretended 
 that foreign corn is at present imported, and fills the public granaries, 
 ready to be poured out the instant that the Gazette gives the signal, 
 by declaring the average to be SO.?, for the last six weeks; and my 
 honourable friend considers that if the permission thus to warehouse 
 foreign grain were withdrawn, no such (.'fleet could be produced. 
 Now, I will suffer myself to be devoured by the vermin I have been 
 talking of, if I do not, in a few minutes, show my honourable friend 
 himself the fallacy of this argument. Does he think that merchants 
 wait for the Gazette to learn the price during any period of six 
 weeks? Are they ignorant of the weekly and daily state of the mar- 
 kets? Do they not know at any moment of any six weeks how the 
 prices arc running, and can they form no guess, as the six weeks 
 elapso, of the average, at which the Gazette return is likely to state 
 them? Why, the corn merchant does not even wait until a harvest is 
 ripe before he commences his calculations, in order to form his plans 
 of importation. I happen to know a little of this branch of trade,
 
 284 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 
 
 and I can inform my honourable friend, that there are emissaries sent 
 round the country while the grain is in the ear, to collect samples, 
 which are sifted out and measured and weighed, in order to obtain 
 data upon which the goodness of the crop, its yield, may be estimated, 
 long before a sickle has glanced among the stalks. While my hon- 
 ourable friend is sitting in his study, forming plans upon the supposi- 
 tion that those corn merchants will wait for the periodical promulgation 
 of the average by the king's printer, they are actually in his fields, com- 
 mitting an innocent trespass, to obtain the earliest information of the 
 next crop as the ground work of their speculations; and upon this know- 
 ledge they speedily begin to act. If the permission to warehouse is 
 withheld, they still must act upon the rise of the markets, and the only 
 difference will be, that instead of collecting the grain on this side of 
 the water, they will have it on the other, to the benefit of foreign 
 merchants, agents and warehousemen, but just as ready to be poured 
 in as if it were in our own ports. Indeed, any one must be sensible, 
 after a moment's consideration, that nothing but a constant expec- 
 tation of the price approaching to 80s. could induce merchants to 
 bring over their cargoes and lodge them in this country, when they 
 know, that until it reaches that point, all the expenses of the impor- 
 tation are incurred for nothing. Whether the voyage is made before 
 or after the day on which the Gazette declares that point to have 
 been attained, must obviously be a matter of perfect indifference; and 
 it is the only thing which the permission or prohibition of warehousing 
 can effect. 
 
 The alteration suggested in the laws relating to wool, appears 
 to me in a very different light. I had the honour of broaching 
 this important subject on the first day of the session, and every- 
 thing that has since come to my knowledge confirms the opinion I 
 then ventured to express. As a committee has been appointed this 
 night to investigate the question at the suggestion of my honourable 
 friend,* who has thrown so much light on the whole matter now 
 under discussion, I shall abstain from going into it at length; but I 
 must beg to press upon your attention how greatly the agricultural 
 interests are concerned in it. The most important relief has been af- 
 forded to many parts of the country by the good prices which wool 
 has borne during the depression of almost all other produce: I 
 allude especially to the long coarse wool, the ancient and peculiar 
 staple of this island. Ten years ago it was from 9d. to Is. the pound; 
 now it is 2ld., and it was recently as high as 2s. This article is the 
 growth, and has, during the bad times, formed the support of Lin- 
 colnshire and the midland counties. Further northwards we have 
 principally the coarse wool from the black-faced sheep. This is grown 
 in the northern counties, and as far as Edinburgh: it used to be Id. or 
 3d., and is now I4d. or I5d. the pound. The relief afforded by such 
 prices is not confined to the wool grower; it extends to all other 
 agriculturists in his neighbourhood; because whatever saves a farmer 
 
 * Mr. Frankland Lewis.
 
 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 2S5 
 
 from distress or ruin upon the general balancing of his accounts, keeps 
 him from glutting the market with his produce or stock, and prevents 
 the general market of agricultural produce from being depressed. In 
 like manner, the support of the wool districts has extended relief to 
 the other districts, and has produced a favourable effect upon the 
 whole markets of the country, rendering the pressure of the general 
 distress considerably lighter than it would have been had the wool- 
 grower been in the same predicament with all other agriculturists. 
 There is every reason, however, to apprehend, that this article also is 
 on the decline: it has actually fallen within the last three months, and 
 would certainly fall much more rapidly, but for the large orders now 
 in market in consequence of extensive contracts for clothing foreign 
 troops. I have heard of one contract for the uniforms of 150,000 
 men, which must raise the demand for the wool immediately used in 
 that manufacture. In these circumstances, and indeed at any time, 
 it seems to be a most unwise policy, as far as regards our agriculture, 
 to prohibit the exportation of wool. The finer sort would in all 
 probability find no market abroad, and a permission to export it would 
 therefore have no effect either way; but for the coarse, especially the 
 long wool, there must always be a great demand, as 4t is absolutely 
 necessary to certain manufactures, and is at present peculiar to this 
 island. It well deserves the attention of the committee, whether the 
 prohibiting laws should not be repealed, which compel the wool 
 grower to sell his commodity at home, in order that the manufacturer 
 may work it, and the consumer may wear it, much cheaper than they 
 would if the farmer had the choice of his market. The establishment 
 of a free trade would not raise the price above its present stand- 
 ard, nor in all likelihood would it prevent some further fall, but it 
 would at least guard us against the great depression which may now 
 be apprehended. These are points, however, well worthy of inquiry, 
 and I look to the labours of the committee appointed to night, for much 
 information upon them. 
 
 But the most material subject for our consideration, consistently 
 with the view which I have taken of the present distresses manifestly 
 the burdens peculiarly affecting land; and these are the tithes, parish 
 rates, and general taxes. Upon the subject of tithes, I have much to 
 submit to your notice, as it has Ion? and anxiously engaged my atten- 
 tion; but it seems not to be peculiarly connected with our present in- 
 quiry, astithes rather affect the expenditure of capital in improvements, 
 and this is certainly not the predicament of almost any person in these 
 times. I am desirous therefore of deferring to another opportunity 
 the observations which I have to make on the plans of commutation 
 proposed by different gentlemen, particularly by my honourable 
 friend the member for Hertfordshire,* as well as another method not 
 yet suggested, by which I feel assured an arrangement of this impor- 
 tant matter might be made with great facility and safety. The sub- 
 ject of the poor-rates, however, is one which, in an especial manner, 
 
 Mr. Brand.
 
 286 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 
 
 presses for discussion; and I am confident that every one who may 
 have honoured with his attention the observations which I have sub- 
 mitted to you, will perceive how essential some revision of the system 
 is to the welfare of agriculture. 
 
 It is clear that the exclusive pressure of parish rates upon the 
 land, was never in contemplation of the legislature; but as the 43d 
 of Elizabeth, whatever it may enact with respect to the persons who 
 shall pay, furnishes no means of obtaining payment in proportion to 
 the profits of trade and professions, the law, if unaltered, must con- 
 tinue to throw the whole burthen upon the land-owner. In addition 
 to this he has to support almost all the public works, as roads, 
 bridges, and churches, in which he is no more interested than the 
 other members of the community. They are made originally at his 
 expense, and kept in repair by him; and, although the rest of the 
 country refunds a part of the money originally advanced, yet every 
 one knows, how seldom this is adequate to his repayment while 
 the repairs, constantly required, are a certain loss to him. At present, 
 however, I am speaking chiefly of the poor rates. The deviation, 
 in some measure necessary, from the intent of the statute of Eliza- 
 beth, as to the class who shall pay them, is not more fatal to the 
 interest of the land-owner, than the perversion of that law, without 
 any such excuse, to the support of all poor persons, whether capable 
 or incapable of work, and the supply of money to those who earn 
 what are deemed inadequate gains. I confess that I see but one 
 radical cure for the state into which this last abuse has thrown the 
 country, and which is daily growing worse, deranging its whole 
 economy, debasing its national character. The inequality of the sys- 
 tem may be remedied; at least I would fain hope that some method 
 might be devised, without having recourse to the odious machinery 
 of the income tax, for making the other property bear its share with 
 the land in defraying the expense which should fall equally on all 
 income, if it is to be compulsory upon any. But though great relief 
 may thus be obtained, the worst vices of the system are deeper seated, 
 and admit, I fear, but of one cure. As the law is now administered, 
 under the influence of the habits which have unfortunately grown up 
 with the abuse of it, the lower orders look to parish relief no longer 
 with dread or shame; but they regard it as a fund out of which their 
 wants may at all times be supplied. To say nothing of the effects of 
 this feeling upon their habits of industry and economy; to pass over 
 its fatal influence on their character, and especially on their spirit of 
 independence; only observe how it removes all check upon imprudent 
 marriages, and tends to multiply the number of the people beyond 
 the means of subsistence that is, to multiply the numbers of the 
 poor. A young couple who feel inclined to marry, never think now- 
 a-days, of waiting until they can afford it, until they have a prospect 
 of being able to support a family. They hardly consider whether 
 they are able to support themselves. They know that whatever defi- 
 cit may arise in their means, the parish must make up; and they take 
 into their account the relief derivable from this source, as confidently
 
 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 287 
 
 and with as little repugnance as if it were a part of their inheritance. 
 It is truly painful to reflect, that our peasantry who, some time ago, 
 used to regard such a supply with dread used to couple every notion 
 of ruin, misery, and even degradation with the thought of coming 
 upon the parish should now he accustoming themselves to receive 
 relief almost as if it were a regular part of their wages. 1 can see 
 but one effectual remedy for this great and growing evil; it is the 
 one which follows so immediately from the principles unfolded in 
 Mr. Malthus's celehratcd work. It might be objectionable, on many 
 grounds, to withhold relief from the future issue of mitrriagrs already 
 contracted; but why not such relief be refused to the children bora 
 of marriages to be coniracted after a certain period? An exception 
 might perhaps be made in favour of those who are incapable of 
 working from age, or other infirmity, though 1 know not that it 
 would be better to make their claims a matter of right than an ap- 
 peal to charitable assistance. But persons able to work, and the 
 issue of marriages had after the law is changed, should certainly be 
 excluded. This change would not operate an immediate reform of 
 the system, but the reform would be a perfectly sure one, and it 
 would commence almost as soon as the law passed. If any gentle- 
 man is scared at so great an innovation, I will only ask him to 
 survey the enormous amount and odious nature of the evil com- 
 plained of, and to make his choice between the expedient suggested, 
 and the mischief so severely felt, not, indeed, as it at present exists, 
 but in the still greater extent towards which it is daily hastening. 
 
 The next point to which I shall beg the attention of the committee, 
 is the means of relieving the land, and indeed the country in general, 
 from the pressure of taxation, which I have shown to have so great 
 a share in the present distresses. That such relief is within our reach, 
 to a very great extent, I hold to be perfectly manifest. The whole 
 sums applicable to the sinking fund for the last year amount to 
 15,627,000, and including the Irish debt, 16,928,000. Of this the 
 financial operations of IbOS and 1813, have appropriated 4,302,- 
 000; there remains undisposed of 12,626,000, and the sinking fund 
 on the Austrian and Portuguese loans is 124,000, which makes 
 the whole unapplied fund 12,750,000. Now, of this large revenue, 
 6,479,000 arises from the one per cent, upon all loans contracted 
 since 1793. It may be thought consistent with good faith to pre- 
 serve this portion of the fund entire; and before such a plan as I 
 am now suggesting could begin to operate, it would amount to about 
 six millions and a half. The remaining part of the fund, including 
 the annual grants and the interest of the other redeemed stock, 
 amounting to 6,271,000, or at the period in question, to about 
 6,300,000, might I will venture to say, not only without detriment, 
 but with advantage to the credit of the country, be applied to its re- 
 lief in the remission of the most oppressive taxes. If a sinking fund 
 of six millions and a half is left operating ut a time when there 
 are no new loans, it will produce a fur greater effect in the stock
 
 288 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 
 
 market than the whole fund has ever done during war, when much 
 more stock was constantly poured in than the commissioners could 
 redeem. Indeed, this is too large a fund to remain so applied in 
 time of peace, and could only be justified by the notion prevailing 
 in some most respectable quarters, that good faith towards the lend- 
 ers, since 1792, requires the one per cent, to be left untouched. But 
 for preserving the other six millions and a quarter, no pretext can 
 be urged, especially after the inroads already made upon the fund 
 during war, which have destroyed all idea of its inviolability, in the 
 minds of those who held it sacred. The prospect of the vast bene- 
 fits which might be conferred on the country by such an arrange- 
 ment, is so dazzling that I am afraid to trust myself with painting 
 it. Only let the committee reflect for a moment upon the taxes 
 which might be instantly repealed, supposing always that our expen- 
 ses have been by retrenchment brought within our present revenue. 
 The taxes that press most upon agriculture those on leather, hus- 
 bandry-horses, and malt, might at once be done away. The most 
 oppressive of the assessed taxes might also be repealed. The bad 
 gains of the lottery, by which money is raised directly at the expense 
 of public morals, might be abandoned. In short, we should have the 
 pleasing task, during the remainder of this session, of inquiring what 
 taxes pressed most severely upon the people, or were most pernicious 
 in their effects; and of lightening the burthen to the extent of between 
 six and seven millions. As the remaining part of the sinking fund 
 increased, further relief might from time to time be afforded; for 
 surely it never could be in the contemplation of any one who under- 
 stood the public economy of the country, in its trading as well as finan- 
 cial concerns, that the whole amount of the taxes required by the 
 existing debt should be repealed at once, and the transition made 
 suddenly from a levy of forty-two millions a-year to no levy at all. 
 Nor could any friend to the stability of the constitution wish to see 
 the executive government for any period, how short soever, possessed 
 of that enormous income unappropriated to any service. But they 
 who tell us that the sinking fund is sacred, or rather that it has since 
 1813, become sacred who will not hear of any proposition for 
 gradually reducing it whom nothing will satisfy but a rise of stocks 
 in a few months to par, the repayment of 100 for every ^C50 or 
 55 that we have borrowed, and the continuance of all our heavy 
 burthens until the moment when they may all cease together those 
 persons must surely be prepared either to show that the taxes now 
 paying for the benefit of their posterity, are unconnected with the 
 distresses of the present age, or to produce some other means of 
 relieving their country. The question is now at issue between the 
 stockholder arid all the rest of the community, and it is for the com- 
 mittee to say whether they will, at all hazards and costs, take his 
 part, or listen to the only imaginable means of effectually remedying 
 the most crying of the evils we are labouring under. 
 
 Before I sit down, sir, I must advert to the great importance of
 
 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 289 
 
 keeping a most watchful eye over the mercantile and manufacturing 
 interests of the kingdom. It is an inexcusable ignorance or thought- 
 lessness alone, which can ever overlook the intimate connection be- 
 tween our trading and our agricultural concerns; nor can anything be 
 more preposterous than the clamour frequently raised on the one or 
 the other side, as if those two great branches of public industry could 
 have interests incompatible with each other. The sufferings of the 
 merchants and manufacturers are hardly less severe in these times, 
 than the distresses which immediately occupy our attention in this 
 Committee. It well becomes us to see that they do not increase under 
 the pressure of foreign competition, since the restoration of peace on 
 the Continent. Whatever measures may tend to open new markets 
 to our industry, the government is most imperiously called upon to 
 entertain. A more effectual relief can hardly be given to agriculture 
 than such a support extended to the other parts of the community. 
 Let me. in this light, entreat the attention of the Committee, and more 
 especially of His Majesty's ministers, to the trade with South America. 
 Connected as we are with the governments of Portugal and Spain, 
 by every tie that can give one power a claim to favour from another, 
 surely we may hope to see some arrangements made which shall 
 facilitate our intercourse with the rich markets of Mexico, Brazil, and 
 Peru. At present, if I am rightly informed, a considerable traffic is 
 driven with those fertile countries, but under trammels that render it 
 irksome and precarious. It is known that no consuls or residents, 
 either commercial or political, are established in Spanish America; 
 and, indeed, the whole trade is liitle better than a contraband carried 
 on under a certain degree of connivance. Yet it is difficult to imagine 
 anything more beneficial to our mercantile interests, than the estab- 
 lishment of a regular and authorized connection with those parts of the 
 world. The subject is not free from delicacy, in consequence of the 
 efforts making by the Spanish colonies to shake off the yoke of the 
 mother country efforts for the success of which every enlightened, 
 indeed, every honest man, must devoutly pray. But wherever the 
 authority of the Spanish and Portuguese governments extends, it may 
 be hoped that some footing will be obtained for our merchants by 
 negotiation, while, with respect to the revolted colonies, I trust his 
 Majesty's ministers will beware how they carry their delicacy towards 
 the mother country too far, and allow other nations to preoccupy the 
 ground which our own countrymen ought to have their share of. The 
 Americans are in the neighbourhood; we know their indefatigable 
 activity and vast commercial resources; let us take care, not that we 
 press forward to exclude them from the markets in question that is 
 impossible; but that we obtain access to those marts for ourselves. It 
 is a subject of vast extent and importance; I abstain from entering 
 further into it; but this I will venture to assert, that the minister who 
 shall signalize his official life by establishing, whether in the old or the 
 new world, such a system as may open to his country the commerce 
 of South America, will lender a greater service to the state, and leave 
 VOL. L 25
 
 290 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS. 
 
 to posterity a more enviable fame, than it is in the power of conquest 
 to bestow. 
 
 Sir, I have to thank the Committee for the patient attention with 
 which they have honoured me. I am conscious that I owe it to the 
 singular importance of the subjects I have been handling; and that, 
 too, is the only apology I can offer for having so long trespassed upon 
 your indulgence.
 
 SPEECH 
 
 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS, 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 
 MARCH 13, 1817. 
 
 SIR When I consider that the period of the session is well nigh 
 passed, in which it has been the custom of this House, at periods of 
 great public distress, to inquire into the state of the nation, and yet 
 that nothing has been done to bring the subject before us, or to tes- 
 tify, on our part, a becoming anxiety concerning the sufferings of the 
 people, I feel myself supported by this reflection under the magni- 
 tude of the vast question which I have presumed to handle. We 
 have, in truth, allowed the accustomed season of investigation to 
 elapse, without doing anything except what, with all possible respect 
 for the proceedings of Parliament, I conceive to have been beginning 
 at the wrong end. Mistaking the symptom for the malady, we have 
 attempted to stifle the cries of the people in their extreme distress, 
 instead of seeking the cause of their sufferings, and endeavouring to 
 apply a cure. I am, indeed, aware that there are many who differ 
 with me upon this subject, who deemed the late measures of legisla- 
 tion salutary and wise. But whatever variety of opinion might exist 
 upon their merits, I may now appeal to all who hear me, to those 
 who joined me in deprecating and resisting the suspension of the con- 
 stitution, and to those who viewed this frightful step as justified by 
 the necessities of the times, and call upon all parties alike to say, 
 whether the moment is not at length come, when it behoves us to 
 monnt from the effect to the cause of the mischief; and, having done 
 so much to preserve the public peace, whether it is not our duty to 
 search for the means of alleviating the general misery by which alone 
 that peace has been endangered. My very sincere anxiety to give 
 the Parliament an opportunity of discharging this duty, has made me 
 bold to bring forward the present question; too late, I admit, for attain- 
 ing all the objects that might once have been within our reach, but 
 early enough, I would fain hope, to cllect some good purposes.
 
 292 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 
 
 I am aware that there is nothing so injudicious as to begin a discus- 
 sion like this, by hazarding any large and sanguine predictions of 
 its probable result. Nevertheless, I will venture to say, that what- 
 ever difference of opinion may exist upon particular topics, a con- 
 siderable majority of the House will agree in holding, that the period 
 is now arrived when, the war being closed, and prodigious changes 
 have taken place almost all over the world, it becomes absolutely 
 necessary to enter upon a careful but fearless revision of our whole 
 commercial system, that we may be enabled safely, yet promptly, to 
 eradicate those vices which the lapse of time has occasioned or dis- 
 played: to retrace our steps, where we shall find that they have 
 deviated from the line of true policy; to adjust and accommodate our 
 laws to the alteration of circumstances; to abandon many prejudices, 
 alike antiquated and senseless, unsuitcd to the advanced age in 
 which we live, and unworthy of the sound judgment of the nation. 
 
 I shall begin, sir, by entering upon the fundamental branch of the 
 inquiry, which I am solicitous the House should institute I mean 
 the present aspect of our affairs. Every one is aware that there 
 exists in the country a great and universal distress a distress wholly 
 without parallel in any former period of its history. This, indeed, is 
 unhappily matter of so much notoriety, that I should hardly think 
 it required any particular proof or illustration, were it not that accord- 
 ing to my view of the subject, the extent to which the evil has spread 
 and the peculiar shapes which it has assumed, must be examined, 
 before we can probe its sources or find a remedy. The House will 
 speedily perceive in what way this examination of the fact conduces 
 to the object we all have in view, and will, I am persuaded, give 
 me credit in the meantime, for not leading them into superfluous 
 details. 
 
 To demonstrate the general proposition, indeed, I might bid you 
 cast your eyes upon the petitions that load the table, from all parts 
 of the empire, from every description of its inhabitants, from numbers 
 infinitely exceeding those that ever before approached us in the lan- 
 guage of complaint. It is in vain to remind us of the manner in 
 which some of them have been prepared for signature. Does any 
 man believe, that a treasury manufactory of petitions, distributing the 
 article through the country with all the influence of government, 
 could procure one column of names to a statement of national pros- 
 perity, or a prayer for liberal taxation? Nor does the ineptness of 
 the remedies which many of the petitioners suggest, impeach the cor- 
 rectness of their tale of distress: they may be very incapable of devising 
 the means of relief they are abundantly qualified to give evidence of 
 the grievance. 
 
 I might next appeal to the returns from the custom-house, to show 
 the declension of trade. I am aware that these documents give no 
 information respecting the internal commerce of the country, by far 
 its most important branch; and that even with respect to foreign traf- 
 fic, nothing can be more fallacious than arguments wholly withdrawn 
 from such sources. When taken, however, in conjunction with other
 
 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 293 
 
 evidence, they are not altogether to be disregarded. Now, it is shown 
 by a comparison of the years 1815 and 1816, that there was a falling 
 otf, in the shipping employed during the latter year, of 826,000 tons, 
 or nearly 5000 vessels. This fact is the more remarkable, that we 
 were at war during a quarter of 1815, whereas 1816 was the first 
 whole year of peace. These returns speak of the tonnage outwards 
 and inwards; but they tell nothing of the difference between the 
 exports and imports of either year. I will venture to assert, that a 
 much more considerable defalcation will be found in the importation 
 of last year than the mere falling off in the tonnage indicates. I am 
 well aware that many millions of goods have been sent abroad, for 
 which no returns have been received, and which never will produce 
 sixpence to the exporters. Upon this point no custom-house papers 
 can give any information. They cannot show what proportion of 
 the cargoes shipped have found a market what parts have been 
 sold under prime cost what parts remain upon hand unsaleable at 
 any price and what parts of the goods imported are in a similar 
 situation. 
 
 We have known former times of great national suffering most 
 of us are old enough to remember more than one period of severe 
 public calamity but no man can find an example of anything like 
 the present. In 1800 there was a scarcity much greater than is now 
 felt, but no distress ensued beyond the reach of private charity, and 
 the affliction ended with the bad season; for, though provisions were 
 dear, work was abundant, and the bulk of the poor were enabled 
 to sustain the pressure of the evil. In 1812 there was a much greater 
 distress the dearth was less, indeed, but the rate of wages was far 
 lower. The House well remembers the painful inquiries in which 
 it was then my fortune to bear a considerable part. We were accus- 
 tomed to describe the circumstances in which we found the manufac- 
 turing population of the country as wretched beyond all former 
 example; and the expression was strictly justified by the fact. Yet, 
 compared with the wide-spread misery under which the same classes 
 now labour, the year 1812 rises into a period of actual prosperity. It 
 will be necessary for me, and I hope the House will grant me their 
 indulgence, to go shortly into some particulars touching the great 
 staple manufactures of the kingdom, in order to. show how unparal- 
 leled in its amount, and how various in its kinds, the distress is, which 
 now everywhere prevails. 
 
 I shall begin with the clothing, a branch of trade which, from acci- 
 dental circumstances, is not so depressed as our other great staples; 
 and for this, among other reasons, that the foreign markets do not 
 happen to be overstocked with this manufacture, while some consi- 
 derable foreign government contracts have given great assistance to 
 several of the clothing districts. I hold in my hand the result of state- 
 ments which I have received from the principal clothing counties of 
 Yorkshire Leeds, Huddcrsfield, Wakefield, and Halifax. Taking 
 the number of men engaged in the branch which suffers most, the 
 cloth dressing, at 3,360 in August last, there were then 927 in full, 
 
 25"
 
 294 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 
 
 1385 in partial employment, and 1048 wholly out of work. Calculat- 
 ing upon the same number, there are now only 757 in full, and 1439 
 in partial work, while 1164 are entirely idle; that is to say, a third of 
 the whole are idle, and of those who have any work, only one-third, 
 that is, two-ninths of the whole, or two men in nine have full employ- 
 ment. The distress of the other clothiers in this county is far from 
 being so considerable; but in the West of England, I am informed by 
 the most unexceptionable evidence, that it exceeds anything which 
 can easily be conceived. 
 
 If we now carry our view towards the iron trade, a most gloomy 
 picture is presented; and I may take the state of Birmingham as a fair 
 symptom of this commerce in general, intimately connected as that 
 great town is with the neighbouring counties in all the branches of 
 their industry and commerce. In a population of 84,000 souls, about 
 27,500 receive parish relief Of the work people, one-third are wholly 
 out of employ, and the rest are at half work. The poor-rates have 
 risen to between fifty and sixty thousand pounds a-year, a sum 
 exceeding, as I am informed, what the inhabitants paid to the income- 
 tax. In 1812, when the House was so greatly touched by the state of 
 this place, only a ninth part of the population were paupers, and the 
 rates did not exceed 27,000, yet we then thought the public distresses 
 had reached their utmost pitch. 
 
 The people engaged in the iron trade may be divided into four great 
 classes, with reference to my present purpose the miners and others 
 employed in obtaining the raw material the persons employed in 
 manufacturing arms the nailers and the common artificers. The 
 first of these classes, who in 1810 received from ISs. upwards, as far 
 as (wo guineas a-week, get now from 10s. to ISs. the second, who re- 
 ceived still higher, I might say even exorbitant wages, from the demand 
 occasioned by the war, now get only Is. 6d. when they are employed 
 at all the nailers, who are better off than most classes, yet earn no 
 more than S#, or 9s., instead of 12s. or 15s. while the common arti- 
 ficers are working at a shilling a-day. But in all these classes the 
 women and children, who used to earn so much as nearly to double 
 the gains of the able workmen, are not wholly unemployed. Sir, I 
 do not wish to mingle any allusions of a political nature with the de- 
 scription of these sad scenes; but I feel it due to the character and the 
 sufferings of those unhappy persons, to assert (and I do so upon the 
 authority of men who differ with me in political sentiments) that a 
 more loyal, peaceful, tranquil set of people are not to be found within 
 the limits of his Majesty's dominions. 
 
 It is truly painful to think, that, severe as the distress is in those 
 parts of the country which I have been describing, a yet more melan- 
 choly picture presents itself when we turn to the great staple of the 
 country, the cotton manufacture. This, as the House is well aware, 
 consists of two branches, the spinning and weaving; but, from the 
 introduction of machinery, the numbers employed in weaving are be- 
 yond all comparison greater than those employed in spinning. In 
 Lancashire alone, and the borders of the adjoining counties, there are
 
 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 295 
 
 above half a million of persons who derive their support from the 
 former. Taking the average gains of a thousand weavers, of all ages 
 and classes, their rate of wages was 13*-. 3d. a-week in May 1SGO. 
 In ISQ2 the s>ame persons received the still higher sum of 13s. lOd. 
 In 1806 it had fallen to 10*. 6d.; and in 1S08, alter it had pleased the 
 wisdom of government to "retaliate," as they phrased it, u upon the 
 enemy the evils of his own injustice," and to inllict upon ourselves 
 (as the event proved to such as had not the sense to perceive it) the 
 evils of our own impolicy when we had succeeded in quarrelling 
 with our best customers those wages fell as low as Gs. Id. In 1S12, 
 when the whole virtues of our system had been called into action, and 
 had bestowed the full measure of its beneficence upon our trade, the 
 wages fell to 6.y. 4d. In IS 16, the third year of peace, and while we 
 were slowly moving through that transition of which we have heard 
 (though it seems something of rather a permanent than a passing 
 nature) wages were as low as 5s. 2d. This was in the month of May; 
 and in January last, they had reached the fearful point of depression 
 at which they now stand, of 4s. 3\d.; from which, when the usual 
 expenses paid by the work people for the loom are deducted, there 
 remains no more than 3*. 3d. to support human life for seven days. 
 13y another calculation it appears, that 437 persons have to provide 
 for themselves and as many more out of 5.9. a-week; making, for the 
 whole subsistence and expenditure of each individual, less than 4\d. a 
 day. 
 
 When I paused over this scene of misery, unequalled in the history 
 of civilized times, I felt naturally impelled to demand, how it was pos- 
 sible to sustain existence in such circumstances, and whether it were 
 not practicable to administer charitable aid? To the first question I 
 received for answer the painful intelligence, that those miserable 
 beings could barely purchase, with their hard and scanty earnings, 
 half a pound of oatmeal daily, which, mixed with a little salt and 
 water, constituted their whole food. My other inquiry had been an- 
 ticipated by that well known spirit of kindness, not more humane 
 than politic, by which the demeanour of the master manufacturers in 
 this country has ever been regulated towards their workmen in the 
 seasons of their common distress. Projects for alfording them relief 
 had been canvassed; but it was found, that to distribute only a slen- 
 der increase of nourishment, an addition of a little milk, or beer, or a 
 morsel of meat to the oatmeal and water, no less a sum than ^0,000 
 a-week was required, and at a time when the masters were hardly 
 receiving any profits from their trade. To talk of charity, then, is en- 
 tirely out of the question; the case lies far beyond the reach of private 
 beneficence; and, if it admits of a remedy at all, must look to other 
 sources of relief. 
 
 Now, what is the consequence of all this, and whither does it in- 
 evitably lead? These wretched creatures arc compelled first to part 
 for their sustenance with all their trifling property, piecemeal, from 
 the little furniture of their cottages to the very bedding and clothes 
 that usefl to cover them from the weather. They struggle on with
 
 296 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 
 
 hunger, and go to sleep at nightfall, upon the calculation, that, if they 
 worked an hour or two later, they might indeed earn three-halfpence 
 more, one of which must be paid for a candle, but then the clear gain 
 of a penny would be too dearly bought, and leave them less able to 
 work the next day. To such a frightful nicety of reckoning are hu- 
 man beings reduced, treating themselves like mere machines, and 
 balancing the produce against the tear and wear, so as to obtain the 
 maximum that their physical powers can be made to yield! At 
 length, however, they must succumb; the workhouse closes their dis- 
 mal prospect; or, with a reluctance that makes their lot a thousand 
 times more pitiable, they submit to take parish relief; and, to sustain 
 life, part with the independent spirit, the best birthright of an English 
 peasant. 
 
 If from these details we ascend to considerations of a more general 
 nature, and observe certain symptoms, which, though less striking in 
 themselves, are perhaps the safest guides in such an inquiry, we shall 
 find, that nothing is happening around us on any side, which is not 
 indicated by these signs of the times. The first of the symptoms to 
 which Lshall refer is the great diminution that has taken place in the 
 consumption of luxuries all over the country. This is attested by the 
 undeniable fact, that there has been a material and increasing defalca- 
 tion in the produce of the customs and excise, especially of the latter, 
 during the last twelve months. It is well known, too, that those dis- 
 tricts suffered first, and most severely, which depended upon the man- 
 ufacture of luxurious articles. Every one is familiar with the case of 
 Spitalfields. The poor of that neighbourhood, after having exhausted 
 the whole rates, have received from voluntary contributions, reflecting 
 the highest honour upon the charitable and liberal character of the 
 metropolis at large, sums, which, added to the rates, exceed the whole 
 income of the parish at rack rent. In like manner the levies of Co- 
 ventry and its neighbourhood have increased beyond all former exam- 
 ple. It appeared, when the petition from thence was presented, that 
 one estate of 200 acres paid ^6400 in rates. A singular instance, illus- 
 trative of the same position, with respect to the country generally, 
 was stated by my honourable friend the member for that city,* and, 
 through his courtesy, I have this evening seen a more minute account 
 of it than he then gave. A person belonging to the place has been 
 accustomed for many years to travel over a great part of England, 
 selling watches. He visits, in his circuits, 283 cities and towns, and 
 he used commonly to dispose of about 000 watches. Last year, 
 making precisely the same round as usual, he only found purchasers 
 for forty-three. Perhaps, when we consider the variety of classes who 
 use watches, and the extent of the space over which this diminution 
 operated, it would be difficult to imagine a stronger symptom of the 
 decrease in demand for luxuries. The watch trade in London has 
 suffered in an equal degree. The statements recently published show, 
 that there are 3,000 journeymen out of employment; that those who 
 
 Mr. P. Moore.
 
 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 297 
 
 are in work have been earning for the last three months one-fourth 
 of (heir usual gains; and during the last month only one-sixth; while 
 their property has heen pledged to the amount of 1,600, in three- 
 quarters of a year. If I am not misinformed, other trades in the me- 
 tropolis suffer in a like proportion. It is said that 2,000 of the 18,000 
 journeymen tailors in Westminster are wholly destitute of work. 
 
 I lake the great discontent excited throughout the country by the 
 introduction of new machinery to be another symptom, and a most 
 unerring one, of the present distress. Formerly when the invention 
 of any piece of mechanism for abridging manual labour occasioned 
 an alarm among the working people, it was partial and transient. 
 Those who were thrown out of employment speedily found other 
 channels of profitable occupation, the population disengaged by the 
 new machine were absorbed, with their industry; and in a short time 
 the traces of the change disappeared, except that its beneficial effects 
 upon the capital of the country soon created a greater demand for 
 labour than existed before the invention, lint now the case is widely 
 different. The petitions, which night after night are presented to us 
 by thousands and tens of thousands, complaining of machinery, 
 testify, that when workmen are flung out of one employment they 
 can no longer find others ready to receive them; and that the capital 
 saved by the abridgement of labour can no longer produce its healing 
 effect. When Sir R. Arkright invented the apparatus which lias 
 proved of such benefit to this country, though it deprived many 
 thousands of their livelihood for the moment, yet no particular discon- 
 tent was excited. I have obtained from two of the greatest cotton- 
 spinners, in both parts of this island, an estimate of the saving in 
 manual labour effected by that machinery; and as both concurred in 
 stating, unknown to each other, that by means of it one man could do 
 the work of a hundred, I may assume the calculation as pretty near 
 the truth. So considerable a shock to the labouring population pro- 
 duced scarcely any discontent. The case is so different now, when 
 the smallest improvement is made in the means of economizing hu- 
 man power, that I hardly know whether to rejoice or be sorry at any 
 such change. There has of late been a considerable accession of 
 mechanical power in the weaving trade; and though it cannot operate 
 like the spinning mills, yet it bids fair to throw numbers out of work, 
 and destroy even the scanty pittance at present gained by a great 
 number of those wretched individuals, whose hardships I have been 
 describing to-night I allude to what is called the Power Loom, by 
 which one child is enabled to do the work of two or three men. Hut 
 the House will hear with surprise and vexation, that mechanical im- 
 provement has, as it were, reached its limit; an unexpected impedi- 
 ment has started up to check its further progress. It is now found, 
 for the first time in the history of mankind, so low arc wages fallen, 
 so great is the pressure of distress, that manual labour is making re- 
 prisals on machinery, standing a successful competition with it, boat- 
 ing it out of the market, and precluding the use of an engine, far from 
 costly in itself, which saves three labourers in four. The farther imro-
 
 298 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 
 
 duction of the power loom is actually stopped by the low rate of 
 weaver's wages! There are, however, other branches of industry, as 
 the printing and lace trades, which have been lately threatened, if I 
 may so speak, with the competition of new mechanism, and of such 
 powers as not even the miserable wages of the day can be expected 
 to resist. 
 
 The last symptom of distress which I shall mention, is the state of 
 the money market. I am aware that there are some who view this 
 subject in a very different light. 1 know not if the right honourable 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer concurs in the opinion recently de- 
 livered from high authority in another place, no less than that of the 
 first minister of the country, and the person at the head of its finances. 
 That noble lord is reported to have drawn the most favourable augury 
 from the late rise of the funds, which he ascribed, by some process of 
 reasoning not very easily followed, to the suspension of the Habeas 
 Corpus act. However injurious this measure may prove to the con- 
 stitution, it seems we are to regard it as highly favourable to trade. 
 Now, suppose I were minded to turn the tables upon the noble lord, 
 and bid him look at the still greater rise of the stocks after the report 
 of the committee appointed to examine the contents of the Green 
 Bag. That famous document first unfolded the existence of the Spen- 
 cean plan, and was calculated directly to bear upon the funds; be- 
 cause, according to the true faith of that great sect, though the land- 
 holder is bad, and fit to be despoiled, the fundholder is " a monster, 
 and must be hunted down." So says the report, yet the funds arose 
 upon its appearance; from whence I might argue, if I chose to adopt 
 the ground of the first minister of finance, that the fundholders one 
 and all disbelieved in the existence of the plot. I will not, however, 
 take this advantage of the noble lord, by following his own example. 
 I am satisfied with drawing, from the state of the stocks and the 
 money market generally, inferences more naturally connected with 
 the subject, and in favour of the view I have already of public affairs. 
 It is well known, that there exists at present a facility of obtaining 
 discounts at 4 and 4 per cent, on bills of short dates, which even a 
 year ago were not to be procured at a much higher premium. Stocks, 
 too, have risen; they are 10 per cent, higher on the nominal capital 
 than they were a few months since. Exchequer bills, after two seve- 
 ral reductions of interest, leaving the income upon them at only 83 
 per cent., still bear a premium. What does all this prove? If I saw 
 that there was any proportionate facility in obtaining loans upon land 
 at 5 per cent., that is, upon the best security our law affords, I might 
 be inclined to pause before 1 ascribed the state of the money market 
 to a glut of unemployed capital. But hitherto none of this capital has 
 overflowed upon the land; and the fact is unquestionable, that there is 
 much money in the market of stocks, floating debt, and discounts, only 
 because there is little or no employment for it in trade, and because no 
 capitalist chooses to put his money beyond his reach for more than 
 a few months, in the expectation that commerce will revive. The 
 want of employment at home has a tendency to drive capital abroad;
 
 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 299 
 
 and signs of this emigration have already manifested themselves in 
 the negotiation of loans with foreign powers. One transaction of 
 this nature has already been concluded with France; and undoubtedly 
 the greater part of the money to be advanced in the course of it will 
 come from the capitalists of this country. America is said to have 
 two speculations of a similar description going on at the present mo- 
 ment in the city. Respecting one of them I have heard some particu- 
 lars; and it resolves itself into a stock operation, the object of which, 
 is the application of British capital to the support of the American 
 funds. How indeed is it to be supposed, that capital should not find 
 its way abroad, when, on the other side of the channel, it fetches in 
 the public stocks nearly double the interest given by our funds, and 
 much more than double the interest paid by our floating debt? The 
 state of foreign exchanges with this country I shall at present only 
 glance at cursorily, because I venture to assure the House, that, be- 
 fore I sit down, if I do not altogether fail in stating the views I enter- 
 tain of another branch of the subject, I shall be able to demonstrate 
 the necessary connection between what is called a favourable rate of 
 exchange and the depression of foreign commerce. That rate is in 
 fact only another proof of the unnatural state of our trade; it is the 
 immediate result of forced exportations, with scarcely any importa- 
 tion in return. Thus it happens, that when goods have been sent to 
 any part of the continent, from whence nothing can be brought back, 
 in order to remit the produce of the sales, there is a demand for bills; 
 but there being no transactions ending in this country, and no real 
 bills, fictitious drawing is resorted to, until the pound sterling is raised 
 to a height above par, very favourable indeed to those who spend 
 money abroad, but wholly useless to traders, who can buy nothing 
 there to sell again in this country; a height, too, which it cannot re- 
 tain as long as there is bullion to send over, and which, when pro- 
 perly understood, indicates the existence of a traffic unnatural and 
 necessarily short-lived exportation without imports. 
 
 Sir, when such is the unparalleled state of embarrassment under 
 which two of the great branches of national industry, commerce and 
 manufactures, labour, it would be in vain to expect that any material 
 or permanent improvement should take place in that which is the 
 ultimate source of all wealth and prosperity, and is intimately con- 
 nected with every other employment I mecin our agricultural. If 
 we hear less at the present moment of the distresses of the landed 
 interest, it can only be because the consumption of the foreign grain, 
 which last year oppressed the markets, and the measures adopted by 
 the legislature to shut out this competition, have been aided by a 
 scanty crop, and have raised the price of corn. Those districts where 
 the harvest has been tolerable are therefore comparatively well oil'; 
 whereas last year the sulfering was universal; but wherever the crop 
 has been a failing one, that is, in the grenier part of the country, the 
 high price is by no means a compensation for the deficiency and the 
 poor-rates. I have therefore no manner of doubt, that the land is, 
 generally speaking, worse oft' than before. It is indeed a vain and
 
 300 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 
 
 idle thing to take distinctions between the different orders of the 
 country, and to speak of the agricultural and mercantile classes as if 
 they had opposite or even independent interests. They are all inti- 
 mately and inseparably connected by the eternal nature of things; 
 they must for ever run together the same course, whether of progress 
 or decline. I will give you, on this matter, the words of a man who, 
 having by his honest industry become the greatest ornament of the 
 one order, made himself, by the fruits of his honourable gains, a dis- 
 tinguished member of the other, and afterwards rose, by his sagacity 
 and experience, to adorn also the literature of his age. " Trade and 
 land," says Mr. Child, "are knit each to other, and must wax and 
 wane together; so that it shall never be well with land but trade 
 must feel it, nor ill with trade but land must fall." 
 
 The House will feel how much less difficult it is to describe the 
 extent and intensity of the prevailing distresses, than to trace the 
 various causes which have concurred in producing them, and to sepa- 
 rate those portions of the evil, which arise out. of temporary circum- 
 stances, from those which have gone on increasing with a slower 
 growth, deeply rooted in the system of policy that has been established 
 amongst us, or at the least closely interwoven with it. But I should 
 not deal fairly with the House, if I did not thus early state my opi- 
 nion as to the nature of those causes generally: it is founded upon 
 the universal extent and the great variety of the distresses which I 
 have been describing; and my principal reason for entering so largely 
 into that description was, not certainly because it required any such 
 evidence to prove the miserable condition of the country, but because, 
 from the universality in which the pressure prevails, I deemed the 
 inference to be unavoidable, that it springs from causes of no tempo- 
 rary nature. It is quite true that a transition from war to peace must 
 always affect several branches of public wealth, some connected with 
 foreign, but a greater proportion with domestic trade. Thus two 
 departments of industry have suffered severely by the cessation of 
 hostilities; the provision trade of Ireland, through it also, the cattle 
 market of this country; and the manufacture of arms at Birmingham. 
 The distress arising from the peace in those branches of commerce 
 may be temporary; if all the other channels of trade unconnected 
 with the war were open, it certainly would be temporary. But when 
 we find the depression general in all lines of employment, as well in 
 those uninfluenced by the war demand, as in those wholly dependent 
 upon it; when we see that hands thrown out of work in one quarter 
 can no longer be absorbed into the other parts of the system: when 
 there plainly appears to be a choking up of all the channels of in- 
 dustry, and an equal exhaustion in all the sources of wealth we are 
 driven to the conclusion, that the return of peace accounts at the 
 utmost only for a portion of the sad change we everywhere witness, 
 and that even that portion may become permanent from the preva- 
 lence of the evil in quarters not liable to be affected by the termina- 
 tion of the war. I have shown you, that the cotton trade, wholly 
 unconnected with the war, is more depressed than the iron trade in
 
 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 301 
 
 general, and to the full as much depressed as the very gun manufac- 
 tory at Birmingham. I am entitled to conclude, first, that the tran- 
 sition from war to peace has not produced all the mischief; and next, 
 that the mischief which it has produced might have been got over, 
 as in former times, if it had been the only one which oppressed us. 
 Sir, we must once for all look our situation in the face, and firmly 
 take a view of the extent of our disease. It is not of a partial de- 
 scription; it is of general prevalence; it is of a searching nature; there 
 is no channel of our whole circulation into which it has not worked 
 its way; no fibre or filament of our whole economical system that 
 does not feel its deadening influence; not one limb has been hurt, but 
 the whole body is impaired in the exercise of all its functions. Can 
 we expect it all to heal and revive of itself, and in a short time? I 
 need hardly remind you, that we are now approaching the fourth 
 year of " transition," and still no relief, no mitigation; on the con- 
 trary, we experience an increase of our calamity; whilst every one 
 knows, that in less than half the time, from the end of all former 
 wars, a complete recovery was effected. I shall therefore endeavour 
 to describe what, after all the attention that I have been able to give 
 the subject, appear to me the real causes of the unnatural state in 
 which every man must admit the country is placed. 
 
 I must entreat the House impartially to fix their eye upon the line 
 of policy, which for many years past has been adopted by the public 
 councils of the country. In referring to it, I shall as much as possible 
 avoid the more debateable grounds of the commencement and conti- 
 nuance of war, and keep to points upon which I believe a very little 
 explanation will preclude the possibility of any considerable differ- 
 ence in opinion. It should seem that those who style themselves the 
 practical politicians of this country (because they are the dupes of a 
 theory as visionary as it is absurd) have long been surrounded by a 
 class of men, who, blending with what is termed true mercantile 
 knowledge, much narrow-minded, violent, national prejudice, or, as 
 they call it, genuine British feeling, assume to themselves the style and 
 title of the "sound statesmen," and certainly do in good earnest exert 
 a real and practical influence over the affairs of the nation. With 
 these sage instructors of almost every administration (and they are 
 generally found united in place with their pupils, and knit to them by 
 the endearing reciprocity of good offices), it is a maxim equally sacred 
 and profound, that too much can hardly be done to discourage im- 
 portations of all kinds and from all countries. The old mercantile 
 system has long been exploded; but these wise personages, having 
 been born and bred up in it, seem to have caught hold of its last 
 plank, to which they slill cling with all their might, perpetually con- 
 ning over its grand motto " All trade, and no barter, all selling, and 
 no buying; all for money, and nothing for goods." To support the 
 remnants of a doctrine universally abandoned in every enlightened 
 country, all means are resorted to, fair and foul; for in defence of 
 their favourite creed, these sound advisers betray a morality far from 
 rigid or scrupulous. The theory itself is repudiated, and its very 
 VOL. i. 2(i
 
 302 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 
 
 name disowned by all who have received a liberal education. No 
 man is to be found hardy enough, no one so careless of his reputation 
 for common sense, as even to use its language. How long is it since 
 the "soundest" politician among us has ventured to speak, in public 
 at least, the jargon of the balance of trade? Yet, marvellous to relate, 
 the practical results of this extirpated heresy are interwoven with 
 our whole commercial policy; and, though the nonsense, and even 
 the dialect of its tenets are rejected of all men, <hey are disguised in 
 legal phraseology, embodied in efficient regulations, and may be 
 traced in broad characters through every volume of the statute book 
 down to the last. Year after year we have proceeded under the 
 auspices of our wholesome, practical, sound, national statesmen, until 
 Ave now find ourselves, as might naturally be expected, deprived of 
 most of the great staples of foreign commerce. 
 
 In mentioning a few instances of our obligations to these sagacious 
 councillors, I must say a single word upon the corn bill, which, strictly 
 speaking, comes within the class of measures I am alluding to. To 
 the opinion, which I originally entertained upon that law, I still adhere. 
 I feel now, as I did then, that its first effects are injurious, by cutting 
 off a great article of foreign trade; but I look for an ample compensa- 
 tion of that injury in advantages of a higher nature; the ensuring a 
 regular, a safe, and ultimately a cheap supply of the great necessary 
 of life, which no change of foreign policy, no caprice of hostile govern- 
 ments, can impede or disturb. It may also be admitted by those 
 who disapproved of the measure as a permanent branch of our policy, 
 that the circumstances of the times justified its adoption as a tem- 
 porary resource. At any rate, we resorted to it, not as the only pro- 
 hibitory law in our commercial code, but while almost every branch 
 of trade was struggling in the fetters of the restrictive system. We 
 approved of it for special reasons, many of them temporary in their 
 nature; and regarded it as an exception justified by those reasons, and 
 by the unnatural state of our whole polity. The doctors of the mer- 
 cantile school jumped at it as a part of their scheme, and as coincid- 
 ing with the numberless trammels which they had devised for com- 
 merce in all its departments, and the removal of which might very 
 possibly alter our whole opinion upon the corn bill. Let us only cast 
 our eye over a few of those regulations. 
 
 I shall first request the attention of the House to the exploits of 
 these sages in the Baltic trade. That branch of commerce has always 
 been deemed highly important, both to our shipping and our mercan- 
 tile interest; both with a view to defence and to gain. Its short 
 voyages make it an excellent nursery for seamen; its quick returns 
 are highly favourable to profit. Circumstances, which I need not 
 enumerate, render it a peculiarly secure and steady kind of traffic. 
 Yet, of the four great staples of the Baltic trade, two, including the 
 greatest of the whole, have been cut off. We still receive hernp and 
 tallow; but we have prohibited the importation of iron and timber. 
 And to what views have we sacrificed this important market for our 
 own goods? To encourage ruinous speculations in this country, we
 
 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 303 
 
 imposed a duty upon foreign iron amounting to a prohibition; while, 
 to force the importation of inferior timber from our North American 
 colonies, that is, to gratify the Canada and shipping interests, always 
 highly favoured by the school of the practical and right honourable 
 gentleman opposite,* we excluded the greatest staple of the Baltic. 
 Instead of leaving the adventurers in mines to their fate, suffering 
 them to thrive if they could by their natural resources, we encouraged 
 them, by extraordinary stimulants, in a pursuit, which sound policy 
 would rather have discouraged; a precarious, gambling, and upon the 
 whole a losing concern to the country. Mark the consequences of 
 this system. We used to export 400,000 or 500,000 of our manu- 
 factures annually to Norway: that vent, I understand, has now ceased, 
 Norway having no other means of making payment but the iron and 
 the timber, which our modern practitioners of antiquated wisdom have 
 seen good to exclude altogether. Canada, for whose sake the sacrifice 
 was partly made, no doubt, still remains ours, in spite of all the pains 
 we took to lose it; but there is no part of this country at present so dis- 
 tressed as the mining districts of Wales. A similar prohibition of foreign 
 copper has cut us off from one of the principal articles of South Ameri- 
 can produce. 
 
 It is not many days since some conversation took place respecting 
 an act of last session, which imposed protecting duties on foreign 
 butter and cheese. I then expressed my repugnance to any extension 
 of that protection; and I will now mention a fact within my know- 
 ledge, both to show how dangerous this sort of legislative interference 
 is in a vast, complicated, and delicate commercial system, and also to 
 demonstrate how little a high rate of exchange indicates a thriving 
 trade. The instant that those duties were imposed, as true as the 
 pulse keeps time with the stroke of the heart, foreign exchange rose, 
 as it is called, in our favour two or three per cent. A branch of our 
 importation was lopped off: it became more difficult to remit from 
 abroad, in the first instance, and consequently must have become pro- 
 porlionably more difficult to send goods thither immediately after; our 
 whole foreign trade was sensibly diminished, and by the very ope- 
 ration which raised the exchange, and in exact proportion to its 
 rise. So much for the quick effects of the operations in which these 
 sound personages delight; so much for the accuracy of the symptom 
 which they consult as infallible in pronouncing upon the state of 
 commerce! 
 
 The same perverse views have long regulated our commercial inter- 
 course with France. Partly from mercantile views, partly from feelings 
 of a political, and almost of a religious nature, there are many amongst 
 us, who have laid it down as a principle, from whence they hold it 
 nearly impious to depart, that as little wine as possible must be taken 
 from France. Although that fine country is our nearest market, and 
 ought to be our best customer; although the vine is its chief produce, 
 and its wines are allowed by all to bo the best, by some considered 
 
 Mr. Rose.
 
 304 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 
 
 as the only ones drinkable: yet their importation is to be avoided be- 
 cause France is our natural enemy, and Portugal our dear, and indeed 
 costly friend. In the true spirit of this creed, the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer some time ago laid a new duty upon claret, not with any 
 view to revenue, but, as he himself declared, in the technical lan- 
 guage of his sect, with the hope of discouraging the use of French 
 wines, upon principles of a political nature. It may, for anything I 
 know, be in the contemplation of this class of statesmen, a mark of 
 comprehensive policy in a manufacturing country to refuse those arti- 
 cles which it wants the most and likes the best, and which alone 
 enable a trade with its best customer to be kept up. But if I may 
 be allowed to speak as a trader, availing myself of the flattering 
 compliment bestowed upon me last night by the worthy alderman,* 
 and to proceed on the suggestions of common sense, I should regard 
 such conduct, not as the result of sound policy, or of any policy at 
 all, but as dictated by prejudices bordering on insanity. 
 
 But it is somewhat melancholy to think that worse blunders remain 
 untold. The conduct pursued with regard to the linen trade very 
 considerably surpasses all that I have mentioned; for it has been as 
 directly in hostility to the favourite principles of the mercantile school 
 as to the interests of the country. That school has always patronized 
 the carrying trade in an especial manner; and I believe I may assert, 
 that no branch of it was ever more productive than the transit of 
 foreign linens; yet upon this we began, and never stopped until we 
 had imposed a duty of fifteen per cent, upon all linens imported and 
 re-exported. If I am asked to explain why we did so, I cannot; for 
 here the wit of man would in vain search for anything like a reason. 
 But I can tell what the ministers thought they were doing all the 
 while. The fact is, that many nations prefer foreign linens to our 
 own; and they used to buy those linens here. We saw this, and said 
 they should not have them; so to legislate we went; resolved, that an 
 act of Parliament should pass the two Houses, and should then 
 receive the royal assent, as requisite to make it binding upon the taste 
 of foreign countries, which we expected would be changed to please 
 us the instant that the solemnities of legislation were completed, and 
 the accustomed words from the crown pronounced. What has been 
 the consequence? Those nations who formerly repaired to British 
 markets, laid in their investments of foreign linens, and at the same 
 time completed their assortment in British goods, (the foreign linen 
 operating as a kind of decoy, from the convenience of finding all 
 their cargo in the same place) all at once ceased to visit our ports. 
 They were unmannerly enough to disregard our law, although it had 
 been passed with every one of the accustomed formalities; they took 
 their course to Hamburgh, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen, where they 
 could get the foreign linens somewhat cheaper than we ever sold 
 them. This latter advantage they had always disregarded, consider- 
 ing the opportunity of conveniently completing their assortments of 
 
 * Atkins.
 
 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 305 
 
 British articles as a compensation for it; but the transit duty was 
 much greater than the trade could bear; it proved, as indeed it was 
 meant, a prohibition; only that the contrivers of it, who did not mean 
 to drive the purchaser to a foreign market, forgot that they had no 
 means of keeping him in one where they would not sell him what 
 he wanted. They forgot, too, that his departure not only destroyed 
 the transit trade, but the trade in British goods connected with it and 
 now transferred to foreign countries. The House, no doubt, must be 
 prepared to hear, that this scheme of perverse and short-sighted folly 
 is not of yesterday. It betokens so slow a state of information, so gross 
 an ignorance of the subject, so senseless a disregard of the most obvi- 
 ous principles, that every one will readily conjecture its origin to be 
 lost in antiquity. At all events, it must have been invented prior to 
 the date of the mercantile system, itself now exploded; for nothing 
 can more clash with the doctrine of promoting the carrying trade. 
 Then what will the House say, if it is less than a century and a half 
 since this notable law passed? What if, after ages of experience, 
 after the full knowledge imparted by the multiplicity of events and 
 changes crowded into the last twenty years what if this statute was 
 deliberately passed not longer ago than the year 1S10, under the auspices 
 of the present ministers! What if, no farther back than last year, Parlia- 
 ment were induced by them to decline revising this piece of nonsense, 
 and expunging it from the book! Sir, these are indeed things, which 
 it requires the evidence of all our senses to make us believe. But if 
 such be the groundwork of our commercial system, there can be little 
 difficulty in comprehending the mischiefs that must sooner or later flow 
 from it. 
 
 There are numberless other instances of the same policy, which I 
 might detail to the House. I might speak of the duty upon the ex- 
 portation of coal, amounting at ordinary prices, to seventy per cent.; 
 but for which, that article might find a ready market in France, pro- 
 vided we agreed to take French goods in return. Here, indeed, we 
 may be said to act inconsistently; for, when we refuse to receive the 
 produce of a country, it seems natural enough, though perhaps it is 
 superfluous, to prevent ours from going thither. We are not, how- 
 ever, so consistent in all the branches of this system. While we 
 protect agriculture in some respects, we allow the importation and 
 prohibit the export of wool. This deviation from the general rule is 
 professedly to encourage manufactures, by denying to foreigners the 
 use of the raw produce; yet cotton twist is allowed to go abroad, 
 though it is in the first stage of manufacture: and one should think 
 it full as easy for the continent to grow long wool as to erect spinning 
 mills. The arrangement of the silk duties affords matter of similar 
 observation; but I abstain from leading the House into farther details. 
 I think I may venture to assert, that, taking all things into the account, 
 the lime is now arrived, when (Fie circumstances of our situation im- 
 periously demand a full and unsparing review of the whole com- 
 mercial policy of this country; and not only the branch of legislation 
 
 26
 
 306 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 
 
 which bears a more immediate reference to trade, but the navigation 
 law itself requires the same prompt and accurate revision. 
 
 Whether I consider that system with a view to national defence, 
 or to commercial wealth, I feel persuaded, that no time should be lost 
 in at least relaxing the rigour of its provisions. Many speculative 
 writers have maintained, that it was from the first a sacrifice of 
 wealth to security; but I am disposed to admit, that it was originally 
 calculated to promote both these objects. I think it may fairly be 
 allowed to have hastened, by half a century, an event which must 
 sooner or later have happened the transference from the United 
 Provinces to this country of a large portion of trade, which, though 
 naturally belonging to us, had been attracted by the peculiar advan- 
 tages which enabled the Hollanders to possess themselves of the 
 commerce of all other nations. But whatever may have been the 
 good policy of the navigation law, I am quite clear, that we have 
 adhered to its strict enactments a century after the circumstances 
 which alone justified its adoption had ceased to exist. What is now 
 passing in the colonies affords a striking illustration of its impolicy in 
 the present times. Whether in consequence of orders from home, or 
 of the views entertained by the local governments, the navigation 
 law is enforced, it seems, with unusual strictness, a stop being put to 
 the licenses granted under the intercourse act for importing provisions 
 in foreign bottoms. What course does America pursue to meet this 
 protecting measure? She says, as you will not suffer us to supply 
 your settlements, in any vessels but your own, with those articles of 
 which they stand so much in need, that they may starve for want of 
 them; we "retaliating on your head the mischiefs of your own 
 policy," forthwith shut our ports against all vessels coming from ports 
 from whence you exclude ours. This is the substance of a bill lately 
 before congress, now passed into a law. I have in my hand a copy 
 of it, which has just arrived; and I know that the greatest alarm has 
 been excited by it in our West India colonies, as well as among 
 all who are connected with onr North American fisheries. Here is a 
 striking specimen of that obstinate, perverse system, that refuses to 
 vary with the alteration of circumstances; that will not accommodate 
 itself to the progress of events, or follow the course of times and 
 seasons, but clings superstitiously to what is now inapplicable, though 
 it may once have been important; as if time were standing still, and 
 history were not the record of unceasing change. 
 
 Surveying, then, the derangement which pervades every branch of 
 the public economy; seeing how our trade is cramped by the short- 
 sighted operations of an unenlightened and senseless policy; finding 
 what trifling relief, and that little accompanied with serious obstruc- 
 tions, it has derived from the prosperous condition of onr foreign 
 affairs; we may assuredly affirm, that there never was a period in the 
 vicissitudes of our fortunes, when British commerce might, with so 
 much truth, be said to labour for its existence. Casting our eye over 
 every point of the compass, and scarce able to descry any from which
 
 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 307 
 
 a solitary ray of comfort or of hope breaks in, it is natural for this 
 House, to whose hands the sum of affairs is committed for our un- 
 fortunate brethren, suffering under distresses that baffle description, 
 after bearing us, by their industry and their patience, through the late 
 eventful struggle for the whole population of the empire, exhausted 
 by the drains of a protracted warfare, weighed down by the pressure 
 of the intolerable public burthens which it has accumulated, and now 
 cut off from the temporary relief which the unnatural monopoly of 
 that war afforded it is, I will say, but natural and reasonable for us 
 all to direct our expectations towards any untried resources, any new 
 opening that may present itself to the industry of the community. 
 There can be no field of enterprise so magnificent in promise, so well 
 calculated to raise sanguine hopes, so congenial to the most generous 
 sympathies, so consistent with the best and the highest interests of 
 England, as the vast Continent of South America. He must indeed 
 be more than temperate, he must be a cold reasoner, who can glance 
 at those regions, and not grow warm. The illustrious historian* who 
 has described the course of their rude itivaders, relates, if I mistake 
 not, that when, after unparalleled dangers, amid privations almost 
 insupportable, through a struggle with sufferings beyond endurance 
 weary, hungry, exhausted with the toil, scared at the perils of their 
 march, they reached at length the lofty summits so long the object of 
 their anxious enterprise, they stood at once motionless, in gratitude 
 for their success, in silent amazement at the boundless ocean stretched 
 out before them, and the immeasurable dominion spread beneath their 
 feet, the scene of all their fond expectations. And now the people of 
 this country, after their long and dreary pilgrimage, after all the dan- 
 gers they have braved, the difficulties they have overcome, the hard- 
 ships they have survived, in something like the same state of suffering 
 and exhaustion, have that very prospect opened to their view! If 
 any sense of justice towards them, any regard for the dictates of sound 
 policy, any reverence for the real wisdom of past ages has influence 
 over our councils, they must bo enabled and invited to approach that 
 hemisphere, and partake in the numberless benefits which flow from 
 such an intercourse. Upon our good pleasure it depends to command 
 the virgin resources of that mighty expanse of territory variegated 
 with every species of soil exposed to all the gradations of climate 
 rich from the fallow of centuries sufficiently peopled to raise every 
 variety of the produce we want, yet too thinly inhabited to threaten 
 our own industry with any rivalry watered in all directions by seas 
 rather than rivers studded with harbours through which to distribute 
 its wealth over the Old World and the native country of thai where- 
 with the sect of practical politicians are best pleased, and their patron 
 saint propitiated, gold and silver mines, already fruitful, but capable of 
 yielding infinitely larger returns under the management of European 
 skill. Such is the prospect which those vast regions unfold; a prospect 
 sufficient to compensate every los-s you have sustained; an adequate 
 
 * Robertson.
 
 308 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 
 
 outlet for your mercantile enterprise, though Europe were once more 
 hermetically sealed against you; though Buonaparte were restored, 
 and his continental system (as indeed it is) revived: even though Eu- 
 rope itself were, for commercial purposes, blotted from the map of the 
 world. Nor let any man suppose, that all this is the indulgence of a 
 heated fancy: I rest my expectations upon a careful examination of 
 facts, derived from authority altogether unquestionable. Some of 
 these I shall state, for the guidance of the honourable gentlemen op- 
 posite; because I well know, that some folks will listen to nothing 
 which does not come in the shape of a detail. 
 
 The exports of Spanish America cannot amount to less than eigh- 
 teen millions sterling in yearly value. Humboldt, the justly celebrated 
 traveller, states them at thirteen and a half millions, from the custom- 
 house returns in Old Spain: he reckons the exports of Buenos Ayres 
 at 800,000 of that sum, whereas, on the spot, they are reckoned at 
 1,150,000: we may therefore assume that there is a similar defi- 
 ciency in the other sums indicated by those documents, which would 
 make the whole exportation worth eighteen millions, and one-third of 
 it is from Mexico. It appears from official returns, indeed, that Cadiz 
 imported from South America, in the year 1S02, to the amount of 
 eighteen and a quarter millions,'of which twelve and a quarter mil- 
 lions were in bullion, a trade pleasing even to the gentlemen opposite; 
 though I must confess the remaining six millions were only composed 
 of goods, and I therefore ought to mention this sum with considerable 
 diffidence. Before the late troubles, the annual coinage of Spanish 
 America was nine and a half millions sterling, and it had trebled in 
 half a century. The population of the country is about seventeen 
 millions, including all classes; and it is estimated, that only one person 
 in three wears foreign manufactures. This is probably considerably 
 above the truth; for of the seven millions who inhabit Mexico, only 
 one is understood to wear those goods; the rest using a wretched stuff 
 of home manufacture, only recommended by its cheapness; for, ac- 
 cording to the remark of a native writer, England is there held to have 
 taught them by her wars how to make their own clothes. What an 
 opening does such a country afford for our goods! There exists no 
 want of means to buy them, if the trade is so far facilitated as to afford 
 them at reasonable prices; and if any proof were wanting how far the 
 taste for using them might be introduced by opening the ports, the 
 speculations at Buenos Ayres abundantly supplies it; for, though 
 injurious to the projectors, that traffic has certainly had the effect of 
 diffusing among the natives an inclination to use British manufac- 
 tures. If the southern continent generally were opened, it would 
 infallibly take, not only a larger quantity of them than has ever 
 yet been sent thither, but a swiftly and regularly increasing quantity, 
 which would in a short time leave the imagination behind that should 
 try to calculate it. 
 
 With scenes such as these inviting our approach; with all the pre- 
 possessions of the natives in our favour; calling upon us to sacrifice no 
 principle or propriety of conduct, but only to bless them with com-
 
 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 309 
 
 merce and with the light of our superior civilization, in return for the 
 treasures which they are ready to pour into our lap: whence comes it 
 to pass, that, in a season of such pressure in all other quarters, this 
 splendid theatre of exertion has been overlooked or avoided? It is the 
 new-fangled, the execrable doctrine of legitimacy, the love of Ferdi- 
 nand the Seventh, that has cut England off from her natural connec- 
 tion with South America. In the hour of our greatest need we have 
 sacrificed the certainty of relief, nay the brightest prospects of new 
 prosperity, to the antiquated prejudice against colonial independence, 
 the political caprice of making common cause with the mother country 
 in her endeavours to extinguish the new-born liberties of settlements, 
 now, thank God, in spite of Old Spain and of ourselves, almost severed 
 from her tyrannical dominion. But for these humours, so senselessly 
 gratified, our flag might have floated in every part of that immense 
 continent. We have chosen to be supplanted by a nearer power; a 
 power as active and skilful in speculation as ourselves, and wholly 
 free from the incumbrance of those political attachments and antipa- 
 thies, which so lamentably fetter our commercial enterprise. Only see 
 the course into which these doctrines, or prejudices, have driven us. 
 In 1809, we concluded what is commonly termed Admiral Apodaca's 
 Treaty, acknowledging the dominion of Spain over the Indies, in 
 terms which seem even to imply a guarantee of her dominion. An 
 article was added, which bound the parties, as speedily as possible, to 
 conclude a treaty of commerce; but nothing whatever has since been 
 done towards the fulfilment of this stipulation. In 1814, after the 
 conduct of Ferdinand had called forth, not certainly the applause of 
 all enlightened minds in all countries, it pleased our government to 
 make a convention with him, binding this country to everything short 
 of guarantee, and expressive of deep anxiety for the subjugation of 
 those whom I call the independents, but whom the treaty stigmatized 
 as revolted subjects of our dear ally. In vain have the various pro- 
 vinces of South America, successively, as they threw off the yoke of 
 Spain, courted our notice, and offered us the highest commercial ad- 
 vantages in return. As often as the popular party obtained the ad- 
 vantage in any place, the ports were thrown open to our trade, the 
 residence of Englishmen protected, all intercourse with them cherished. 
 If ever the patriots were unhappily defeated, if the "anxious wishes" 
 were gratified, which the convention expresses, on the part of this 
 country, for the restoration of the legitimate tyranny, straightway the 
 ports were shut against us, and our countrymen would no longer 
 trade, or remain under the dominion of our favourite ally. We were 
 offered by the revolted, as we call them, in Venezuela and New Gre- 
 nada, an exclusive trade for twenty years; and their congress, be- 
 hoving (I use their own words) "that it is the characteristic disposi- 
 tion of Great Britain to protect and assist oppressed people, for the 
 sake of justice and humanity," vainly fancied their cause might he 
 favourably viewed by us. The legitimate lieutenant of the cro\vn, 
 Montalvo, subdued them for a while, and instantly proclaimed what 
 he called " the wise and salutary regulations of the Council of the
 
 310 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 
 
 Indies," recited the services rendered by the Phillippine Company to 
 trade (of all things), and restored its exclusive monopoly, to be en- 
 forced with additional rigour. In 1816, General Bolivar made offers 
 of the most advantageous nature, when on his way to battle for the 
 independence of the Caraccas, which I trust in God he has before this 
 time achieved. All such propisitions were rejected seldom honoured 
 with an answer always treated with contempt or aversion. We 
 were for the party of the oppressor we wished ill to freedom for its 
 own sake, and out of the love we bore its enemy, notwithstanding 
 the advantages we might reap from doing our duty, and helping its 
 struggles. But even this bad policy has been pursued in a wavering, 
 irresolute, and inconsistent manner. We have sent a consul to 
 Buenos Ayres, where he did not present his credentials until the pa- 
 triots had succeeded; he now resides in his public capacity, transacting 
 business with the independent government. But no one other com- 
 mercial or diplomatic agent has been sent to any part of Spanish 
 America, and even at Buenos Ayres, the blockade imposed by the 
 royalists of Monte Video, a few years ago, was enforced by a British 
 man-of-war. The long-established contraband trade with the Main 
 is still encouraged, at least protected, in Jamaica. In Trinidad every 
 impediment is thrown in its way; the councils of the government are 
 influenced by an assessor, who retired thither after the, massacre of 
 the independents in Caraccas, where he had been a principal adviser; 
 proclamations are issued, prohibiting, under the highest penalties, the 
 sending, not only of arms, but of money, to the continent; and severe 
 measures have been adopted towards the refugees of the independent 
 party. These measures have produced their natural effect; and I un- 
 derstand that the principal articles of importation from the Spanish 
 Main have almost doubled in price. 
 
 I entreat the House farther to recollect, that the same treaty which 
 bound our government to prevent all succour from being given to the 
 patriots, bound Ferdinand to abolish the Slave Trade. We have 
 more than performed our part of the compact he neither has taken, 
 nor has the slightest intention of taking, any one step towards fulfil- 
 ling his part. I do not contend that we ought to make war upon hirn 
 for the failure; but I think we have some right to have it explained; 
 and I am clear, that, if he persists in his departure from the stipulation, 
 we are set free from our part of the contract. That we should ever 
 desire to recede from it is more than I can expect; for hitherto we 
 have done much more than we bargained in his behalf and against 
 the patriots. So bigotted are we to his cause, that I have read a me- 
 morial, presented to His Majesty's government by three respectable 
 merchants, who, having come to this country from Buenos Ayres 
 upon commercial business, and having finished their arrangements, 
 were ready to sail on their return homeward, when they were stopped 
 by an order from one of the under Secretaries of State, refusing them 
 leave to proceed, until they should also obtain the Spanish ambassa- 
 dor's leave! Here is one of the fruits of that blessed measure the 
 Alien Act; and a striking proof how soundly those reasoned against
 
 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 311 
 
 it, who urged that it would be used as a political engine for gratifying 
 the caprices of foreign courts. The treaty, you will observe, only 
 binds us to give no assistance to the patriots in warlike stores. The 
 Trinidad proclamation threatens with banishment, confiscation, and 
 imprisonment, all who shall send money. The direct stipulations 
 only engage for neutrality; the preamble expresses the warmest good 
 wishes for the success of the tyrant, while it insults the patriots with 
 the name of revolters. lint, as if we were resolved to go beyond both 
 the spirit and the letter of this convention, to testify, by every possible 
 means, our hostility to the cause of the Spanish colonies, and onr anx- 
 iety to extinguish their rising liberties, the British Minister to the Uni- 
 ted States has been charged, in Congress, with a formal interference 
 to prevent American citizens from sending arms and ammunition to 
 the patriots; and no denial whatever has been given to the statement. 
 I ask the Commons of England, if they are prepared to patronize 
 councils so repugnant at once to the character and the interests of 
 their country as those which, having excluded our trade from the 
 marts of the Old World, deny it a vent in the New, for fear such an 
 intercourse might aid the cause of human freedom, and give umbrage 
 to the contemptible tyrant of Spain? 
 
 It has often been said, and I have hitherto assumed it as unques- 
 tionable, that the excessive load of taxation is one chief cause of the 
 depression under which our commerce now labours. The House, I 
 am persuaded, will give me credit for entertaining no disposition to 
 mix this question with popular clamour against burthens which must 
 be borne. But I wish to remove some misconceptions of an opposite 
 nature, which have too frequently influenced such discussions; and to 
 show in what manner relief might be given to the public without ma- 
 terial injury to the revenue. Some persons, whose general opinions I 
 profess to hold in great respect, have lately supported a position which 
 I take leave to think a mere fallacy; they have maintained, that the 
 amount of the imposts laid upon goods, or upon whatever affects the 
 price of goods destined for the foreign market, can be no obstacle to 
 their sale; and they attempt to prove this strange paradox by the con- 
 sideration, that, as we are enabled to give a proportionally higher 
 price for those commodities which we take in return, it comes to the 
 same thing, whether the foreigner buys cheap or dear of us. A single 
 word overthrows this reasoning at once. Admitting, for a moment, 
 that prices are thus regulated; the foreigner who has goods to buy, 
 will go to those who sell cheaper than we can do; and the foreigner 
 who has goods to sell will come to us, who can give the best prices. 
 To suppose that those who cannot afford to sell as cheap as others, will 
 have the power of regulating the market for their own commodities, 
 is as absurd as to suppose, that those who can afford to buy dearer 
 than others, will pay higher than is necessary. There is another fal- 
 lacy, much more prevalent, as to the effects of taxation within the 
 country. The money thus raised, we are told, is spent by the govern- 
 ment; and the same consumption is maintained as if it were expended 
 by the individuals who paid it. Thus, to take the principal example,
 
 312 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 
 
 it is contended, that if we raise forty-four millions to pay the interest 
 and charges of the debt, that sum is spent in the country by the stock- 
 holders, instead of being spent by the payers of taxes. But first of 
 all, it should be recollected, that those sums are levied in one part of 
 the system, and generally expended in another, so that the expenditure 
 affords no relief in the quarter where the levy of the impost was prin- 
 cipally felt. Thus, when the duty on sugar was raised, in the course 
 of a few years, from 14s. to 21s. a cwt., that sum was neither returned 
 to the planter nor the consumer; it neither went to create a new de- 
 mand for the article enhanced, nor to aid those who paid dearer for 
 it; it went to support other industry than that of the grower, and 
 other resources than those of the consumer. Next we must bear in 
 mind, that the revenue paid to the stockholder represents capital, 
 which has been sunk and in great part destroyed by war capital 
 which has been taken away from profitable to unprofitable employ- 
 ment. Nor is there any fairness in the argument, that the community 
 is not injured by a mere transference of wealth, though none should 
 disappear; for the taking from one class to bestow upon another, in- 
 jures the one more than it benefits the other, even if we had any right 
 to strike such unjust balances; and how much more does this apply 
 to the case of taking from an existing class, to supply one which we 
 create, or at least augment, for the purpose of impoverishing the other ! 
 But the truth is, that all taxes go to support, either those whose labour 
 is so much dead loss to the community, or much less productive than 
 it might have been; whose numbers therefore ought never to exceed 
 the lowest possible amount. The immense sums now raised, either 
 feed those employed thus unproductively, or pay those whose capital 
 has been spent in the same way; they are a constant drain upon the 
 fund destined to support productive labour; they not only prevent ac- 
 cumulation, but create a destruction of capital; they necessarily di- 
 minish, in exact proportion to their enormous amount, the fund which 
 creates the effective demand for all articles of consumption. The ope- 
 ration, too, of taxes, in driving abroad various branches of industry, 
 is unquestionable. They give advantages to foreigners in many points 
 of view. Take, for instance, our duties on silk. The raw pays 5s. 
 6cl., the organized 155. the pound; while in France there is but one 
 duty on both, and that only 2s. Gd. The French silk weaver, then, 
 gets the article, in the first stage of manufacture, for less than half 
 what our's pays for the raw material, as far as duty is concerned. 
 Sometimes foreigners are discontented by a tax beyond its mere 
 amount; the increase of, I think, only half a crown upon the policy 
 stamp, drove them away from Lloyd's, and created several insurance 
 offices at Hamburgh and in America. Sometimes a branch of trade is 
 irretrievably destroyed by an injudicious tax, or receives a shock from 
 which, even after the repeal of the duty, it never recovers. I am in- 
 formed that this has been the case with the watch trade; and the pre- 
 sent appearances are quite consistent with this supposition. 
 
 I purpose now to illustrate what I have said of the effects which 
 taxation produces upon consumption, by a reference to facts; and I
 
 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 313 
 
 shall, at the same time, have an opportunity of showing that the re- 
 venue does not gain all the trade loses. On the contrary, I suspect 
 we have been, in many instances, killing the goose that laid the golden 
 eggs; and I greatly deceive myself if the right honourable gentle- 
 man opposite,* will not soon be aware, how much truth there is in 
 Dean Swift's remark, that " in the arithmetic of the customs two and 
 two do not always make four." 
 
 I shall begin with the duties on sugar, one of the widest fields of 
 modern finance. They were in a short time raised from 14s. to 27s.; 
 and if the price reaches 40s. then to 30s. the cwt. In three years, 
 from 1S03 to 1S06, the former duties were increased about 50 per 
 cent. Now the average produce of the old duties, for three years 
 before that rise, was 2,778,000. The produce of 1804. after they 
 had been raised 20 per cent., was not 3,330,000, as they ought to 
 have been, had the consumption remained the same, but only 
 2,537,000;. and the average produce of 1806 and 1807, after the 
 whole 50 per cent, was added, only gave 3,133,000 instead of 
 4,167.000, which they should have yielded, had the consumption 
 not fallen off since the first rise of duty began; or 3,805,000, which 
 they should have yielded, had there been no falling off since 1804. 
 Thus both trade and revenue suffered by the great increase of duty 
 in 1S03; and trade suffered severely by the subsequent augmentations, 
 while revenue gained in a very small proportion. The duties on 
 glass were nearly doubled in ten years; the produce of those duties 
 has not sensibly increased at ail. Here then is a destruction of the 
 glass trade, to the amount of one-half its whole bulk, without any 
 direct gain to the revenue, and with a very certain loss to it in other 
 branches connected with the diminished consumption. In this case 
 two and two were not found to make four. 
 
 We have recently had before us the history of the wine trade, in a 
 very excellent petition presented by my honourable friend below me,t 
 and well illustrated in the course of his remarks. The duties on wine 
 have been trebled since 1792; the deficiency in the port of London 
 alone was 338,329 last year, as compared with 1S15. The average 
 consumption of three years, ending 1814, was above 3,000 pipes less 
 than the average of three years, ending 1808. In 1804 the duty on 
 port wine was increased one-ninth; the produce of the duty that year 
 fell off nearly one-fourth, instead of increasing a ninth; and in 1805 
 it had by no means increased a ninth above its amount before the rise. 
 Here then was a diminution of trade, an abridgment of the comforts of 
 the people, and an injury to the revenue, first directly and afterwards 
 indirectly. 
 
 It is not so easy to illustrate by example the converse of the pro- 
 position; for, unhappily, the instances are rare in which taxes have 
 been taken off or diminished: yet all the cases where this policy lias 
 been pursued demonstrate the truth of the doctrines for which I con- 
 tend. When Mr. Pitt, by a wise and politic measure, in the year 
 
 * The Chancellor of the Exchequer. f Mr. Sharpr. 
 
 VOL. I. 27
 
 314 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 
 
 1784, lowered the duty on tea from 56 to 12 per cent., the revenue 
 rose considerably. The consumption could hardly have been increased 
 six-fold, but smuggling was prevented to an extent which, with the 
 increased consumption, made the revenue upon the whole a gainer. 
 When in 1787, the duty on wine and spirits was lowered 50 percent., 
 the revenue was improved; the trade must therefore have doubled, 
 the comforts of the people been materially increased, and the other 
 sources of revenue have benefitted in the same proportion. But the 
 progress of the duties and revenue upon coffee illustrates every part 
 of the question in a manner peculiarly striking. In 1805 they were 
 raised one-third, and that year their produce fell off an eighth, instead 
 of increasing a third; in 1S06 they had increased but only a sixteenth; 
 so that the consumption had diminished above a fourth. But it was 
 at length found, that this tax had been overdone, and it was lowered 
 from 2s. to 7d. the cwt. Mark the immediate effects of this step. The 
 average produce of the high duty, for the three years before it was 
 altered, was 166,000; the average of the low duty, for three years 
 after the alteration, was 195,000; so that, as addition has the effect 
 sometimes of diminishing, subtraction seems to increase the sum, 
 in the arithmetic of finance. The augmentation here showed an 
 increase of consumption between four and fivefold; and, in Scot- 
 land, 1 find, that it increased tenfold. It is not, then, on mere specu- 
 lative grounds that I recommend the finance ministers to retrace their 
 steps, and to turn their attention from devising ways of augmenting 
 the taxes (an object, by the by, which they may pore over as long as 
 they please, and will never be able to accomplish) to discover the best 
 means of lessening the public burthens. I have shown from facts, 
 that taxes may be repealed with positive and immediate benefit to the 
 revenue; I think no man hardy enough to deny, that the diminution 
 would contribute mainly towards restoring our commerce to its healthy 
 state, and re-establishing general comfort and prosperity. 
 
 The very collection of our present enormous revenue occasions 
 evils of a serious nature to every class of the people. All of us are 
 acquainted with the inconveniences of ordinary occurrence; but few 
 are aware how severely they press upon trade. To the difficulties of 
 collecting such a revenue are principally owing the monopolies of the 
 dock companies, by which the whole of the West Indian commerce, 
 arid several of the other great branches of trade, are subjected to 
 heavy duties, and irksome delays. Our merchants complain of much 
 dilatory and troublesome proceeding at the custom-house; they must 
 wait for a person who has more to do than he can manage; they 
 must, on every trifling difference, apply to the board; a variety of 
 annoying steps must be gone through; bonds, with all the costs inci- 
 dent to them, are needlessly multiplied; and, in short, everything 
 begins in phigue, and ends in expense. It is very true, that better 
 arrangement might remove some portion of these hardships, but the 
 greater part of them are essential to the system. You cannot mul- 
 tiply indefinitely officers and boards, in whom so large a confidence 
 is of necessity reposed; you cannot, in a word, collect such a revenue
 
 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 315 
 
 as ours, without infinite vexation and delay, beyond the actual bur- 
 then of the impost. Such prodigious levies, with their direct effects, 
 hamper and distress our trade in various ways, which it would be 
 impossible to estimate in money. 
 
 Sir, I have trespassed beyond all bounds, 1 fear, upon the patience 
 of the House; but I cannot prevail on myself to sit down without 
 soliciting your attention to that part of the subject which I have as 
 yet only glanced at slightly. The House, I doubt not, have already 
 perceived that I refer to the entire abandonment of all care for the 
 commercial interests of this country in the administration of our 
 foreign affairs. After a war of unexampled suffering and exertion 
 has been crowned with success far beyond the most sanguine expec- 
 tation, and lifted the name and the influence of the nation to a height 
 without any parallel in the proudest eras of its past history, we na- 
 turally ask, how it comes to pass, that the glorious peace which our 
 efforts have purchased comes without restoring our foreign trade; 
 that we are still shut out from most parts of the continent, as if war 
 was still waged against our commerce; and that day after day, fresh 
 obstacles spring up to it in the quarters where it ought to meet the 
 kindest encouragement? It is not in France merely, where we have 
 long been accustomed to expect a return of jealousy, that our inter- 
 course enjoys no facilities. In what corner of Europe does it possess 
 them? Is it not plain, that wilh those very allies for whom we have 
 fought and conquered for whose cause we have been lavish of our 
 treasure and prodigal of our best blood from whom neither domi- 
 nion nor indemnity has ever been asked in return even with those 
 allies we have never had influence enough to obtain the advantage 
 or the convenience of one single custom-house regulation in our 
 favour? Has anything been done by these men, with all their influ- 
 ence over the councils of Europe? Has anything been attempted by 
 them? I am aware that Russia has reduced her tariff in many arti- 
 cles since the termination of the war; but I also know, that, generally 
 speaking, our commerce labours under duties so nearly amounting to 
 a prohibition, as to throw it into the hands of contraband traders, and 
 exclude the fair and honourable dealing of the British merchant. I 
 know, that, from Memel to the southernmost part of Poland, along 
 the whole line of the Russian frontier, the traffic is driven by means 
 of Jews and other smugglers, as it used to be under Buonaparte's con- 
 tinental system: that now, as formerly, they have their great entrepot 
 at Brody, and were the purchasers of almost all the bills drawn last 
 summer for the sales of wheat exported through Odessa to the Medi- 
 terranean. Russia, however, is more favourable to our commerce than 
 any of our other allies, and some improvement might be hoped for in 
 that quarter, were we not, exactly in that quarter, met most adversely 
 by the other branch of our policy, of which I have already said so much, 
 the prohibitory scheme of our own laws, by which we are prevented 
 from taking in exchange most of the articles of Russian produce. But 
 Prussia, with whom we made common cause who owes to our efforts, 
 next to those of her gallant people, the restoration of her independence
 
 316 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 
 
 almost directly excludes ns from all intercourse with her dominions. 
 Duties amounting to a prohibition are laid upon the importation of our 
 goods: and for such as are carried through the territory to be sold else- 
 where, there are only two ports of landing assigned, and a transit pay- 
 ment of 8| per cent, imposed. How then does the matter stand in Spain 
 in that country which our gigantic exertions have saved whose de- 
 fence, in money alone, beside subsidies, and beside expenses incurred 
 elsewhere, has left a sum of accounts still unaudited, amounting, as we 
 heard the other day, to above fifty millions? Why, in return for this 
 it appears, that with the cabinet of Madrid we possess just no inte- 
 rest whatsoever, either commercial or political! This is a picture of 
 ingratitude on the one hand, and imbecility on the other, disgusting as 
 regards Spain humiliating to our own government provoking to 
 the country. 
 
 The sense of the Spanish nation was, with more or less correctness, 
 represented by the Corles; while its authority continued, a free inter- 
 course with us was studiously promoted. The Cortes was put down, 
 freedom extinguished, and the beloved usurper restored. Instantly 
 old monopolies were revived and enforced, and enlarged with new 
 powers, all strictly hostile to British interests. Additional obstruction 
 was given to our trade, notwithstanding Apodaca's treaty had, on our 
 part, almost guaranteed the integrity of the Spanish dominions, and, 
 on theirs, promised a speedy commercial arrangement. Nay, after 
 our ministers had, in support of Ferdinand, gone farther than was 
 lawful for the rulers of a free and honourable nation like England; 
 after they had been guilty of the most indecent subserviency to his 
 criminal views, abondoned the high tone they used to assume with 
 France while fighting his battle, looked on with perfect indifference 
 at his iniquities, stooped to become the parasites of his caprices, and 
 pander for him the degradation of his country and the slavery of his 
 unfortunate subjects, our own gallant companions in arms how were 
 they requited for those labours in the humiliation of the English 
 name? In a "little month" after the signature of the second treaty, 
 an edict was issued extending the monopoly of the Philippine Com- 
 pany, so as to exclude all British cottons; and we had hardly sent out 
 the Order of the Garter to our ally, when, in return of the courtesy, 
 this decree was backed and enforced by new regulations; and the 
 commercial privileges of Biscay, so favourable to all foreign trade, 
 were, by an act of mere violence upon its ancient constitution, annul- 
 led! Beside the rigorous prohibition of cottons, woollens pay 26 and 
 43 per cent, for the two finer qualities, and as high as 130 for the 
 second, a burthen which the fair-trader cannot bear. It thus happens, 
 that our commerce with Spain is in a worse condition than with al- 
 most any other foreign state, and consigned, in a very great measure, 
 to contraband traders. Not fifteen parts in the hundred of our goods 
 consumed in that country are calculated to pay the duties imposed; 
 the remaining seventy-five parts are smuggled; and about 200,000 
 are paid yearly to Portugal for duties upon the goods sent thither in 
 order to be covertly introduced into Spain.
 
 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 317 
 
 
 
 If we turn our attention to Austria, again we meet with nothing 
 but prohibition. Since the peace, for which we fought side by side 
 with her, and conquered more for her than ourselves, she has either 
 excluded, or loaded almost to the point of exclusion, all the articles 
 in which we can trade with her fine dominions. Our manufactures 
 generally are forbidden; so are cotton yarns below a certain fineness; 
 and it is not much above half a year since the duties upon all finer 
 yarns were suddenly doubled. It should seem as if, from all our exer- 
 tions to serve the Continental powers, whether looking after honour 
 or profit, we were fated to reap nothing but loss and disgrace. 
 
 I would now call the attention of the noble lord in the blue ribbon,* 
 to some things which, though within his department, it is very 
 possible he may not be aware of: because it is quite possible, that 
 those military gentlemen, whom he has planted as ministers and con- 
 suls in different places, how skilled soever in their own profession, 
 may have failed to make any reports upon commercial arrangements, 
 as things very much out of their line, if not below their notice. Does 
 the noble lord now hear, for the first time, and if he does, I am sure 
 it should make a deep impression on his mind, that punishment has 
 so swiftly followed guilt? Does he for the first time hear, that the 
 fruits have already been gathered of the two worst acts in that sys- 
 tem of wicked policy, of which the noble lord is the advocate in this 
 House, as he was the adviser elsewhere that the very persons, in 
 whose behalf those deeds were done, have even now set themselves 
 in direct hostility to the interests of this country. If he lias not be- 
 fore heard this, it may prove a useful lesson to him, and, at all events, 
 I trust it will not be thrown away upon public men generally, if I 
 make known how those very individuals, for whose sake the noble 
 lord sacrificed the honour of his country, and abandoned its sound- 
 est policy towards foreign states; those with whom, after pulling 
 down the usurper, lie plunged into the deepest of all the public 
 crimes that stained his course, and gave the ground for resisting 
 him that they now execrate or contemn the man who made himself 
 the accomplice of their infamous projects. I suspect the noble lord's 
 conscience already whispers to what I allude. I guess he is aware, 
 that I am going to name Ragusa and Genoa Rugusa and Genoa! 
 where the name of England received a stain that all the victories of 
 Lord Wellington cannot wipe away, nor the services of the longest 
 life of the greatest minister that ever lived could alone for. I will 
 speak of Ragusa first: it is the smaller state, and for that reason I 
 dwell upon it the most; because, if there be such a thing as political 
 morality, and political justice if those words have any sense they 
 can only mean, that the rights and the liberties of the weaker states 
 are to be protected by the more powerful; because, in the nature of 
 things, public crime, the olfeiice of one nation against another, must 
 always consist of the strong trampling down the feeble. Therefore, 
 if the spot in question were San Marino, instead of Ragusa, I should 
 
 Lord C'astlercagh. 
 27*
 
 318 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 
 
 the rather cite the example, and deem the oppression of that smaller 
 community a still more flagrant outrage upon justice a baser dere- 
 liction of public principle. Ragusa had flourished for centuries under 
 the protection of the Ottoman Porte, and nominally, under its do- 
 minion. The Porte was the ally of England. Often had we blazon- 
 ed Buonaparte's attack upon Egypt as among the worst of his atro- 
 cities, because France was in amity with the Turk, and there could 
 be no motive for the enterprise but the love of gain, or the lust of 
 power. Nay, his sending Sebastiani to Egypt after the peace of 
 Amiens, was one of the principal grounds alleged by us for so sud- 
 denly renewing the war. Then, I demand, were we at war with the 
 Ottoman Porte during the black transactions of Vienna? Were we 
 not in friendship and alliance with it? Did we once consult it about 
 the cession of Ragusa to Austria? What is more important, did we 
 ever consult the Ragusans upon that cession? Have we not, without 
 the least regard to the rights of a free people, parcelled out their coun- 
 try at our own discretion; and from the liberty they were enjoying 
 and the independence they were proud of, delivered them over to 
 what they deemed subjugation and tyranny? Had they, the Ragu- 
 sans, the people of Ragusa, the smallest share in the deliberations of 
 the famous Congress? They had no minister there they had made 
 no communication to the assembled negotiators they had received 
 none from thence. Their existence was hardly known, except by the 
 gallant example they had set, of shaking off, without any aid, the hated 
 empire of France. And how did we requite them for this noble effort, 
 nay, this brilliant service in what we cantingly termed "the common 
 cause of nations?" We, who had sounded to the uttermost corners 
 of the earth the alarum of Buonaparte's ambition we who, in the 
 name of freedom and independence, had called on the people of the 
 whole globe, and on the Ragusans among the rest, (and they at least 
 had answered the summons,) to rise up against him and overthrow 
 his usurped dominion we requited them by handing them over, in 
 the way of barter, as slaves to a power of which they detested the 
 yoke! But let the noble lord, and let this House, and let the world, 
 mark the retribution which has followed this flagitious act. Austria, 
 extending her commercial regulations to all her new acquisitions, has 
 absolutely shut our trade out of that very Ragusa which we had be- 
 trayed into her hands! and thus has the noble lord received his pun- 
 ishment upon the spot on which he had so shamefully sacrificed the 
 honour of his country! 
 
 Sir. if any page in the history of the late Congress be blacker than 
 another, it is that which records the deeds of the noble lord against 
 Genoa. When I approach this subject, and reflect on the powerful 
 oratory, the force of argument as well as of language, backed by the 
 high authority of virtue, a sanction ever deeply felt in this Mouse, 
 once displayed in the cause of that ill-fated republic, by tongues now 
 silent, but which used to be ever eloquent where public justice was 
 to be asserted, or useful truth fearlessly inculcated, I feel hardly capa- 
 ble of going on. My lasting sorrow for the loss we have sustained is
 
 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 319 
 
 made deeper by the regret, that those lamented friends* lived not to 
 witness the punishment ef that foul conduct which they solemnly de- 
 nounced. The petty tyrant to whom the noble lord delivered over 
 that ancient and gallant people almost as soon as they had, at his call, 
 joined the standard of national independence, has since subjected them 
 to the most rigorous provisions of his absurd code a code directed 
 especially against the commerce of this country, and actually less un- 
 favourable to France. 
 
 Thus then, it appears, that after all, in public as well as in private 
 in state affairs as in the concerns of the most humble individuals, 
 the old maxim cannot safely be forgotten, that "honesty is the best 
 policy." In vain did the noble lord flatter himself, that his subser- 
 viency to the unrighteous system of the Congress would secure him 
 the adherence of the courts whom he made his idols. If lie had 
 abandoned that false,. foreign system if he had acted upon the prin- 
 ciples of the nation whom he represented, and stood forward as the 
 advocate of the rights of the people the people would have been 
 grateful. He preferred the interests and the wishes of the courts, and 
 by the courts he is treated with their wonted neglect. To his crimes 
 against the people all over Europe to his invariable surrender of 
 their cause to his steady refusal of the protection which they had a 
 right to expect, and which they did expect, from the manly and gene- 
 rous character of England it is owing, that if, at this moment, you 
 traverse the Continent in any direction whatever, you may trace tho 
 noble lord's career, in the curses of the nations whom he has betrayed, 
 and the mockery of the courts who have inveigled him to be their 
 dupe. It is in vain we attempt to deceive ourselves. No truth can 
 be more evident than this, that if instead of patronizing abuse, tyran- 
 ny and plunder, we had exhibited a noble, gallant, English spirit in 
 behalf of popular rights and national independence if instead of 
 chiming in with. and aping their narrow, wretched principles, we had 
 done our utmost to enlighten the policy of foreign courts we should 
 have had to treat with a number of constitutional governments, di- 
 rected by sound views of policy, atid disposed to adopt arrangements 
 generally beneficial, instead of the capricious and spiteful regulations 
 which now annoy us in every quarter. 
 
 Only compare the conduct of America towards us with that of the 
 King of Sardinia, of the Austrian Emperor, of Ferdinand of Spain. 
 From America we had no right to expect peculiar favour. Her 
 struggle for independence we had treated as a rebellion. It was 
 successful; and we never altogether forgave it, but entertained towards 
 her feelings approaching sometimes to contempt, sometimes to hatred. 
 I am very far from thinking the Americans untainted by similar preju- 
 dices. They have perhaps been foolish enough to cherish a little 
 spite in return for ours. Nor do I give their government credit for 
 being wholly above tho influence of this animosity; but experience 
 has shown, that, in all popular governments, the true interests of the 
 
 * Messrs. \Vbilbrcad and Horncr, in the debate upon Mr. Lambton'a motion.
 
 320 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 
 
 community must in the main be consulted, and in the great bulk of 
 cases supersede every lesser consideration. Now, we can never, as 
 a trading nation, desire more than that all other countries should adopt 
 the line of commercial policy best suited to the interests of the body 
 of the people in each. The American government has, not from 
 regard for us, but for the sake of its own. subjects, pursued a course 
 favourable to the mutual intercourse of the two states. It is allowing 
 the manufactories created by our absurd system gradually to decline, 
 because industry can there be more beneficially employed in other 
 pursuits. With a few very trifling exceptions, the market of the 
 United States will, in a few months, again be completely restored to 
 us, as far as the competition of the American manufacture is con- 
 cerned, and it is plainly the only considerable relief which we can 
 expect for a long time to come. In France we might have obtained 
 something like the same advantages. There was a time when the 
 feelings of the people ran strongly in our favour; but, instead of culti- 
 vating such dispositions, we have adopted a policy destructive of every 
 kindly impression, and calculated to alienate the affections of all who 
 retain the slightest regard for national honour. I may appeal to any 
 one who has been in France since the war, I will even ask the gen- 
 tlemen opposite, if they have not observed a most intimate connection 
 between the commercial and the political prejudices which now pre- 
 vail against us ? Talk to them of a commercial treaty, or generally of 
 trade with us, and their answer is, nor can we marvel at it, " while 
 you keep 130,000 men in arms quartered upon our territory, we will 
 not treat with you at all. While you rule us with a rod of iron, you 
 shall get no gold from us by trading. While you exact tribute directly 
 at the point of the bayonet, you must not hope to obtain it circuitously 
 through the channels of traffic." These feelings are not peculiar to 
 France; depend upon it, as long as the same fatal policy is pursued, 
 British commerce will be excluded from the Continent excluded 
 more effectually than by Buonaparte's decrees and his armies, because 
 now, for the first time, its ports are sealed against us by the govern- 
 ments, with the cordial assent of the people. 
 
 I hope and trust that this country may, before it is too late, retrace 
 the steps which it has been taking towards destruction, under the gui- 
 dance of the noble lord. I pray that we may live to see England once 
 more holding her steady course in the direction of a liberal, a manly, 
 an honest, an English policy. May the salutary change be wrought, 
 because our honour and fame demand it; but if no higher consid- 
 erations can influence our councils if all worthier motives have lost 
 their force may we at the least consult our safety; adhere to that 
 which is right, because it is shown to be beneficial; and abandon the 
 path of dishonour, because it is leading us to ruin. I move you, sir, 
 to resolve 
 
 " 1. That the Trade and Manufactures of the country are reduced 
 to a state of such unexampled difficulty as demands the most serious 
 attention of this House. 
 
 "2. That those difficulties are materially increased by the policy
 
 MANUFACTURING DISTRESS. 321 
 
 pursued with respect to our foreign commerce, and that a revision of 
 this system ought forthwith to be undertaken by the House. 
 
 " 3. That the continuance of these diiliculties is in a great degree 
 owing to the severe pressure of taxation under which the country 
 labours, and which ought, by every practicable means, to be lightened. 
 
 " 4. That the system of foreign policy pursued by his Majesty's 
 Ministers has not been such as to obtain lor the people of this country 
 those commercial advantages which the influence of Great Britain in 
 foreign courts fairly entitled them to expect."
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OJi 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IMPORTANCE ATTACHED TO DEBATES ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 
 
 THE subject of the Army estimates used at all periods of the war to bring on one 
 of the most important, if not the most important, debates of the session. It was in 
 fact like a State of the Nation, and some of the most interesting, if not the greatest, 
 speeches that have ever been delivered in Parliament, were made upon those occa- 
 sions. The conduct of the war formed of course the main topic of such debates, 
 although whatever else in the state of public affairs bore upon the existing hostili- 
 ties, naturally came into the discussion. 
 
 In 1810 the war was at an end; but the Army estimates continued to afford a 
 subject of much animated debate, because they raised the whole question of the 
 Peace Establishment, and were in fact a State of the Nation. The following speech, 
 delivered on that occasion, was most imperfectly reported, as in those days gene- 
 rally happened to speeches made in Committees of the whole Mouse. It has been 
 revised from notes made at the time; but the passage respecting the punishment of 
 Jacobinism is given from memory, and is believed to be much less full than the 
 original was. The speecli had a greater success than any other made by Mr. 
 Brougham in parliament; of which a memorial is preserved in the accounts of the 
 Parliamentary debates, which mention that it was "loudly cheered from all sides 
 of the House" at its conclusion a thing of very ordinary occurrence, indeed of 
 daily occurrence now-a-days, but which hardly ever happened in former times.
 
 SPEECH 
 
 IN SUPPORT OF 
 
 MR. CALCRAFT'S AMENDMENT, 
 
 To substitute 192,638, 4s. 9(7. for 385,276, 9s. Gd., the Estimate for 
 the Household Troops. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 
 MARCH 11, 1816. 
 
 MR. BROGDEN, Although I on a former occasion delivered my opi- 
 nion generally upon these Estimates, yet I am anxious now to state 
 my sentiments in more detail upon a subject of such great importance, 
 and the rather because of the defiances flung out from the other side 
 to all of us, to go into the examination of it. I stand forward to take 
 up the gauntlet which has thus been thrown down; and I affirm that 
 the more minutely you scrutinize the several items of this bill brought 
 in against the country, the more objectionable you will find them. I 
 object, in the first place, altogether to the large force of guards which 
 it is intended to keep up; and I even protest, though that is a trifle in 
 comparison, but I do protest against the new-fangled French name of 
 Household Troops, under which they are designated, a name borrow- 
 ed from countries where this portion of the national force is exclusive- 
 ly allotted to protect the Prince against a people in whom he cannot 
 trust is the appointed means given him to maintain his arbitrary pow- 
 er is the very weapon put into his hands to arm him against the 
 liberties of his country. However appropriate the appellation may 
 be there, it cannot be endured in this nation, where the Sovereign 
 ought never to have any reason for distrusting his subjects, and never 
 can be entrusted with any force except that which the defence of his 
 people requires. But the name is of far less importance than the thing. 
 Has the noble lord* made out anything like a case for raising the 
 
 * Lord Castlereagh
 
 ARMY ESTIMATES. 325 
 
 amount of this force to more than double of what it was in 1791? If 
 any such proof had boon given, I should not have been found among 
 the opposers of the proposition. But the truth is, that, with all the 
 professed anxiety of the noble lord and his friends to go through the 
 estimates, item by item; with all their pretended readiness and even 
 desire to court full investigation; with all the bluster of their defiance 
 to us, and the bravado more than once used, that we durst not grapple 
 with the question in detail; they have themselves wholly shrunk from 
 the inquiry, tied from all particulars, and abandoned all attempts at 
 showing, in any one instance, from any one conclusion, with a view 
 to any single circumstance in the present situation of the country, 
 that there is the shadow of a ground for this increase of force. We 
 had the subject debated generally indeed, but at great length, a few 
 days ago, on bringing up the report; and it had been repeatedly be- 
 fore the House on former occasions. We have now renewed the dis- 
 cussion on the motion for going into this committee. We have been 
 in the committee for some hours. At this very advanced stage of the 
 debate have we arrived, and though all the members of the govern- 
 ment have addressed tbemselves to the question, many of them once 
 and again, yet I defy any one to point out a single fact that has been 
 stated, a single argument urged, a single topic used, to prove the 
 necessity which alone can justify the scale these estimates are framed 
 upon. It has indeed been said that 2400 of the guards are destined 
 for France, where I suppose the army of occupation is requited in 
 order to demonstrate how tranquil our famous negotiators have left 
 the whole Continent how perfectly successful how absolutely final 
 the grand settlement of all Europe is, upon which we so greatly plume 
 ourselves, and upon which, above all, the political reputation of the 
 noble lord is built. But suppose I pass over this, and do not stop 
 to ask what reason there can be for these 2400 men being guards, 
 and not simply troops of the line those troops required to maintain 
 our final and conclusive settlement, and enforce the profound tranquil- 
 lity in which Europe is everywhere en wrapt; suppose I admit, lor 
 argument sake, and in my haste to get at the main question, that these 
 2400 guards may be necessary what is to be said of all the rest? 
 There remain no less than 7600 to account for. What reason has 
 been assigned, what attempt ever made by the noble lord to assign 
 a reason why .'3600 more; guards should be wanted more than in Mr. 
 Pitt's celebrated establishment of 1792? I desire, however, to have 
 this explained I demand the ground for this enormous augmentation 
 of what you call your " household force" I have a right to know 
 why this increase is called for I call for the reason of it, and the rea- 
 son I will have. Deduct all you require, or say you require, for France; 
 what has happened since Mr. Pitt's time to justify you in nearly 
 doubling the number of the guards? That is the question, and it 
 must be answered to Parliament and to the country answered, not 
 by vague generalities by affected anxiety for discussion, by shallow 
 pretences of desire to have the fullest investigation, by hhiMerini? 
 defiances to w.v and swaggering taunts that we dare not investigate. 
 VOL. i. 28
 
 326 ARMY ESTIMATES. 
 
 We do investigate we do advance to the conflict we do go into the 
 details we do enter upon the items one by one; and the first that 
 meets us on the very threshold, and as soon as we have planted a foot 
 upon it, is this doubling of the guards. Then how do you defend that? 
 Where is the ground for it? What is there to excuse it or to explain? 
 Mr. Pitt found 4000 enough in 1792 then what is there to make 
 7600 wanting now? Look at home Is the country less peaceable 
 now than it was then? Quite the contrary. It was then disturbed; it 
 is now profoundly quiet. Then, although there was no insurrection, 
 nor anything that could be called by such a name, unless by those 
 who sought a pretext for violating the constitution, and by suspend- 
 ing its powers securing their own, yet still no man could call the state 
 of the country tranquil universal discontent prevailed, here and there 
 amounting to disaffection, and even breaking out into local disorders; 
 rumours of plots floated everywhere about; whilst meetings were 
 held; unmeasured language was used; wild schemes were broach- 
 ed; dangerous associations were formed. Though no man had a right 
 to say that the government was entitled to pursue unconstitutional 
 courses for meeting those evils, every man felt obliged to admit that 
 there was reason for much anxiety that the aspect of things was 
 lowering the alarm was a natural feeling that the duty of the 
 executive was to be vigilant and to be prepared. The fears of men 
 whose loyalty was unquestioned, though their wisdom might be doubt- 
 ed, led them a good deal farther than this. Meetings were encouraged 
 to address the crown, and testify the resolution to support its preroga- 
 tives. Bonds were entered into for defending the constitution, be- 
 lieved to be threatened. Pledges of life and fortune were given to 
 stand by the established order of things, and resist to the death. all 
 violence that might be directed against it. Parliament was not alone 
 in countenancing these measures, proceeding from alarm. Both 
 Houses addressed the throne; both joined in asserting the existence 
 of great peril to the constitution; both declared that the public peace 
 was in danger from the designs of the evil-disposed. To rend the 
 language of those times, both in public meetings and their addresses, 
 and in Parliamentary debates, arid resolutions of the two Houses, any 
 one would have thought that a wide-spreading disaffection had shot 
 through the land; that the materials of a vast rebellion were every 
 where collected; and that the moment was tremblingly expected when 
 some spark lighting on the mass, should kindle the whole into a flame, 
 and wrap the country in destruction. Yet in that state of things, and 
 with these testimonies to its menacing aspect, Mr. Pitt, at the very 
 time when he was patronizing the doctrines of the alarmists, encou- 
 raging their movements, and doing all he could to increase rather than 
 allay their fears; when he was grounding on the panic that prevailed, 
 those measures out of which his junction with a part of the Whigs 
 arose, whereby he succeeded in splitting that formidable party yet 
 never dreamt of such a force as we are now told is necessary for pre- 
 serving the public peace. He proposed no more than 4000 guards; 
 and held that amount to be sufficient.
 
 ARMY ESTIMATES. 327 
 
 We are challenged to go into particulars; we are defied to grapple 
 with the question in detail. Then I come to particulars and details 
 with the noble lord. The main duty of the guards is the London 
 service: that is the district to which their force is peculiarly applicable. 
 To keep the peace of this great metropolis is their especial province; 
 and I grant the high importance of such functions. Then I ask when 
 London was ever more quiet than at this moment? When were its 
 numerous inhabitants ever more contented, more obedient to the 
 laws, more disinclined to anything like resistance? At what period 
 of our history was the vast mass of the people by whom we are sur- 
 rounded, over more peaceably disposed, more unlikely to engage in 
 anything approaching to tumult, than now? Why, they have even 
 given over going to public meetings; the very trade of the libeller 
 languishes, if it be not at end, in the general tranquillity and stagna- 
 tion of these quiet times. All is silence, and indifference, and dulness, 
 and inertness, and assuredly inaction. To the unnatural and costly 
 excitement of war, has succeeded a state of collapse, perhaps from ex- 
 haustion, but possibly from contrast alone. The mighty events of the 
 latter days, when the materials for the history of a country were 
 crowded into the space of a few months, have left the public mind 
 listless and vacant. The stimulus is withdrawn, and change has had 
 its accustomed sedative influence. They who had been gazing till 
 their eyes ached, and they doubted if they were awake, upon the 
 most prodigious sights ever presented in the political and the moral 
 world upon empires broken up and formed anew dynasties extin- 
 guished or springing up the chains cast off by not merely a people, 
 but a hemisphere and half the globe suddenly covered with free and 
 independent states wars waged, battles fought, compared to which 
 the heroes of old had only been engaged in skirmishes and sallies 
 treaties made which disposed of whole continents, and span the fate of 
 millions of men could hardly fail to find the contemplation of peace 
 flat, stale, and unprofitable. The eye that had been in vain attempt- 
 ing to follow the swift march of such gigantic events, could not dwell 
 with much interest upon the natural course of affairs, so slow in its 
 motion as to appear at rest. And hence, if ever there was a lime of 
 utter inaction, of absolute rest to the public mind, it is the hour now 
 chosen for supposing that there exists some danger which requires de- 
 fensive preparation, and the increase of the garrison with which the 
 listless and motionless mass of the London population may be over- 
 awed. Why, my honourable and learned friend* has had nobody 
 to prosecute for some years past. It is above two years since he 
 has filed an ex-offieio information, unless in the exchequer against 
 smugglers. Jacobinism, the bugbear of 1 792, has for the past six years 
 and more never been even named. I doubt if allusion to it has been 
 made in this House, even in a debate upon a King's speech, since 
 Mr. Pitt's death. And to produce a Jacobin, or a specimen of any 
 other kindred tribe, would, I verily believe, at this time of day, balllo 
 
 
 
 * The Attorney General.
 
 328 ARMY ESTIMATES. 
 
 the skill and the perseverance of the most industrious and most zea- 
 lous collector of political curiosities, to be found in the whole kingdom. 
 What, then, is the danger what the speculation upon some possible 
 and expected, but non-existing risk which makes it necessary at this 
 time to augment the force applied to preserve the peace of the metrop- 
 olis? But I fear there are far other designs in this measure, than 
 merely to preserve a peace which no man living can have the bold- 
 ness to contend is in any danger of being broken, and no man living 
 can have the weakness really to be apprehensive about. Empty 
 show, vain parade, will account for the array being acceptable in 
 some high quarters; in others, the force may be recommended by its 
 tending to increase the powers of the executive government, and ex- 
 tend the influence of the prerogative. In either light, it is most dis- 
 gustful, most hateful to the eye of every friend of his country, and 
 every one who loves the constitution all who have any regard for 
 public liberty, and all who reflect on the burthens imposed upon the 
 people. 
 
 But if the internal state of the country offers not the shadow of jus- 
 tification for this increase of force, what shall we say of the state of 
 foreign affairs? Above all, what shall we say of the comparison be- 
 tween the face of those affairs now, and its aspect in 1792? That 
 was really a period of external danger. Never was there greater 
 room for anxiety; never had the statesmen, not of England only, but 
 of all Europe, more cause for apprehension and alarm more occasion 
 for wakefulness to passing events more ground for being prepared 
 at every point. A prodigious revolution had unchained twenty-six 
 millions of men in the heart of Europe, gallant, inventive, enterpri- 
 sing, passionately fond of military glory, blindly following the phan- 
 tom of national renown. Unchained from the fetters that had for 
 ages bound them to their monarchs, they were speedily found to be 
 alike disentangled from the obligations of peaceful conduct towards 
 their neighbours. But they stopped not here. Confounding the abuses 
 in their political institutions with the benefits, they had swept away 
 every vestige of their former polity; and, disgusted with the rank 
 growth of corruption to which religion had afforded a shelter, they 
 tore up the sacred tree itself, under whose shade France had so long 
 adored and slept. To the fierceness of their warfare against all au- 
 thority civil and religious at home, was added the fiery zeal of prose- 
 lytism abroad, and they had rushed into a crusade against all existing 
 governments, and on behalf of all nations throughout Europe, pro- 
 claiming themselves the redressers of every grievance, and the allies 
 of each people that chose to rebel against their rulers. The uniform 
 triumph of these principles at home, in each successive struggle for 
 supremacy, had been followed by success almost as signal against the 
 first attempts to overpower them from without and all the thrones 
 of the Continent shook before the blast which had breathed life and 
 spirit into all the discontented subjects of each of their trembling pos- 
 sessors. This was the state of things in 1792, when Mr. Pitt admin- 
 istered the affairs of a nation, certainly far less exposed either to the
 
 ARMY ESTIMATES. 329 
 
 force or to the blandishments of the revolutionary people, but still very 
 far from being removed above the danger of either their arls or their 
 arms; and the existence of peril in both kinds, the fear of France me- 
 nacing the independence of her neighbours, the risk to our domestic 
 tranquillity from a party at home strongly sympathizing with her 
 sentiments, were the topics upon which both lie and his adherents 
 were most prone to dwell in all their discourses of state affairs Yet 
 in these circumstances, the country thus beset with danger, and the 
 peace thus menaced, both from within and from without, Mr. Pitt 
 was content with half the establishment we are now required to 
 vote! But see only how vast the difference between the present 
 aspect of affairs and that which I have been feebly attempting to 
 sketch from the records of recent history, no page of which any of us 
 can have forgotten! The ground and cause of all peril is exhausted 
 the object of all the alarms that beset us in 1792 is no more France 
 no longer menaces the independence of the world, or troubles its 
 repose. By a memorable reverse, not of fortune, but of divine judg- 
 ments, meting out punishment to aggression, France, overrun, reduced, 
 humbled, has become a subject of care and protection, instead of alarm 
 and dismay. Jacobinism itself, arrested by the Directory, punished 
 by the Consuls, reclaimed by the Emperor, has become attached to the 
 cause of good order, and made to serve it with the zeal, the resources, 
 and the address of a malefactor engaged by the police after the term 
 of his sentence had expired. All is now, universally over the face of 
 the world, wrapt in profound repose. Exhausted with such gigantic 
 exertions as man never made before, either on the same scale or with 
 the like energy, nations and their rulers have all sunk to rest. The 
 general slumber of the times is every where unbroken; and if ever 
 a striking contrast was offered to the eye of the observer by the aspect 
 of the world at two different ages, it is that which the present posture 
 of Europe presents to its attitude in Mr. Pitt's time, when, in the 
 midst of wars and rumours of wars, foreign enemies and domestic 
 treason vying together for the mastery, and all pointed against the 
 public peace, he considered a military establishment of half the 
 amount now demanded, to be suflicient for keeping the country quiet, 
 and repelling foreign aggression, as well as subduing domestic revolt. 
 Driven from the argument of necessity, as the noble lord seemed 
 to feel assured he should be the moment any one examined the case, 
 he skilfully prepared for his retreat to another position, somewhat less 
 exposed, perhaps, but far enough from being impregnable. You can- 
 not, he said, disband troops who have so distinguished themselves in 
 the late glorious campaigns. This topic he urged for keeping up the 
 guards. But, I ask, which of our troops did not equally distinguish 
 themselves? What regiment engaged in the wars failed to cover 
 itself with their glories? This argument, if it lias any force at all, 
 may be used against disbanding a single regiment, or discharging a. 
 single soldier. Nay, even those who by the chances of war had no 
 opportunity of displaying their courage, their discipline, and their /eal, 
 would be extremely ill treated, if they were now to be dismissed the 
 
 28*
 
 330 ARMY ESTIMATES. 
 
 service, merely because it was their misfortune not to have enjoyed 
 the same opportunity with others in happier circumstances, of sharing 
 in the renown of our victories. It is enough to have been deprived 
 of the laurels which no one doubts they would equally have won had 
 they been called into the field. Surely, surely, they might justly 
 complain if to the disappointment were added the being turned out 
 of the service, which no act of theirs had dishonoured. I am now 
 speaking the language of the noble lord's argument, and not of my 
 own. He holds it to be unfair towards the guards that they should 
 be reduced, after eminently meritorious service he connects merit 
 with the military state disgrace, or at least slight, with the loss of 
 this station. He holds the soldier to be preferred, rewarded, and dis- 
 tinguished, who is retained in the army him to be neglected or ill- 
 used, if not stigmatized, who is discharged. His view of the consti- 
 tution is, that the capacity of the soldier is more honourable, and 
 more excellent than that of the citizen. According to his view, there- 
 fore, the whole army has the same right to complain with the guards. 
 But his view is not my view; it is not the view of the constitution; 
 it is not the view which I can ever consent to assume as just, and to 
 inculcate into the army by acting as if it were just. I never will 
 suffer it to be held out as the principle of our free and popular 
 government, that a man is exalted by being made a soldier, and 
 degraded by being restored to the rank of a citizen. I never will allow 
 it to be said, that in a country blessed by having a civil and not a 
 military government, by enjoying the exalted station of a constitu- 
 tional monarchy, and not being degraded to that of a military despot- 
 ism, there is any pre-eminence whatever in the class of citizens which 
 bears arms, over the class which cultivates the arts of peace. When 
 it suits the purpose of some argument in behalf of a soldiery who have 
 exceeded the bounds of the law in attacking some assembled force of 
 the people, how often are we told from that bench of office, from the 
 Crown side of the bar, nay, from the bench of justice itself, that by 
 becoming soldiers, men cease not to be citizens, and that this is a glo- 
 rious peculiarity of our free constitution? Then what right can the 
 noble lord have to consider that the retaining men under arms and in 
 the pay of the state, is an exaltation and a distinction, which they 
 cease to enjoy if restored to the status of ordinary citizen?? I read 
 the constitution in the very opposite sense to the noble lord's glos5. 
 I have not sojourned in congresses with the military representatives 
 of military powers I have not frequented the courts, any more than 
 I have followed the camps of these potentates I have not lived in 
 the company of crowned soldiers, all whose ideas are fashioned upon 
 the rules of the drill and the articles of the fifteen manoeuvres all 
 whose estimates of a country's value are framed on the number of 
 troops it will raise and who can no more sever the idea of a subject 
 from that of a soldier, than if men were born into this world in com- 
 plete armour, as Minerva started from Jupiter's head. My ideas are 
 more humble and more civic, and the only language I know, or can 
 speak, or can understand in this House, is the mother tongue of the
 
 ARMY ESTIMATES. 331 
 
 old English constitution. I will speak none other I will suffer none 
 other to be spoken in my presence. Addressing the soldier in that 
 language which alone above all other men in the country he ought 
 to know to which alone it peculiarly behoves us that he, the armed 
 inan, should be accustomed I tell him, " You have distinguished 
 yourself all that the noble lord says of you is true nay, under the 
 truth you have crowned yourself with the glories of war. But 
 chiefly you, the guards, you have outshone all others, and won for 
 yourselves a deathless fame. Now, then, advance and receive your 
 reward. Partake of the benefits you have secured for your grateful 
 country. None are better than you entitled to share in the blessings, 
 the inestimable blessings of peace than you whose valour has con- 
 quered it for us. Go back then to the rank of citizens, which, for a 
 season, you quitted at the call of your country. Exalt her glory in 
 peace, whom you served in war; and enjoy the rich recompense of 
 all your toils in the tranquil retreat from dangers, which her gratitude 
 bestows upon you." 1 know this to be the language of the consti- 
 tution, and time was when none other could be spoken, or would 
 have been understood in this House. I still hope that no one will 
 dare use any other in the country; and least of all can any other be 
 endured as addressed to the soldiery in arms, treating them as if they 
 were the hired partisans of the Prince, a caste set apart for his service, 
 and distinguished from all the rest of their countrymen, not a class of 
 the people devoting themselves for a season to carry arms in defence 
 of tlie nation, and when their services are wanted no more, retiring 
 naturally to mix with and be lost in the mass of their fellow-citizens. 
 
 But it has been said that there is injustice and ingratitude in the 
 country turning adrift her defenders as soon as the war is ended, and 
 we are tauntingly asked, "Is this the return you make to the men 
 who have fought your battles? When the peace comes which they 
 have conquered, do you wish to starve them or send them oil' to 
 sweep the streets?" I wish no such thing; I do not desire that they 
 should go unrequited for their services. But I cannot allow that the 
 only, or the best, or even a lawful mode of recompensing them, is to 
 keep on foot during peace the army which they compose, still less 
 that it is any hardship whatever for a soldier to return into the rank 
 of citizens when the necessity is at an end, which alone justified his 
 leaving those ranks. Nor can I believe that it is a rational way of 
 showing our gratitude towards the army, whose only valuable service 
 has been to gain us an honourable peace, to maintain an establish- 
 ment for their behoof, which must deprive the peace of all its value, 
 and neutralize the benefits which they have conferred upon us. 
 
 See, too, the gross inconsistency of this argument with your whole 
 conduct. How do you treat the common sailors who compose our 
 invincible navy? All are at once dismissed. The Victory, which 
 carried Nelson's flag to his invariable and undying triumphs, is actu- 
 ally laid up in ordinary, and her crew disbanded to seek a precarious 
 subsistence where some hard fortune may drive them. Who will 
 have the front to contend that the followers of Nelson are loss the
 
 332 ARMY ESTIMATES. 
 
 glory and the saviours of their country than the soldiers of the guards? 
 Yet who is there candid enough to say one word in their behalf, when 
 we hear so much of the injustice of disbanding our army after its 
 victories? Who has ever complained of that being done to the sea- 
 men, which is said to be impossible in the soldier's case? But where 
 is the difference? Simply this: That the maintenance of the navy in 
 time of peace, never can be dangerous to the liberties of the country, 
 like the keeping up a standing army; and that a naval force gives no 
 gratification to the miserable, paltry love of show which rages in 
 some quarters, and is to be consulted in all the arrangements of our 
 affairs, to the exclusion of every higher and worthier consideration. 
 
 After the great constitutional question to which I have been direct- 
 ing your attention, you will hardly bear with me while I examine 
 these estimates in any detail. This, however, I must say, that nothing 
 can be more scandalous than the extravagance of maintaining the 
 establishment of the guards at the expense of troops of the line, 
 which cost the country so much less. Compare the charge of 2000 
 guards with an equal number of the line, and you will find the dif- 
 ference of the two amounts to above 10,000 a year. It is true that 
 this sum is not very large, and, compared with our whole expendi- 
 ture, it amounts to nothing. But in a state burthened as ours is, 
 there can be no such thing as a small saving; the people had far 
 rather see millions spent upon necessary objects, than thousands 
 squandered unnecessarily, and upon matters of mere superfluity; nor 
 can anything be more insulting to their feelings, and less bearable by 
 them, than to see us here underrating the importance even of the 
 most inconsiderable sum that can be added to, or taken from the in- 
 tolerable burthens under which they labour. 
 
 As for the pretext set up to-night, that the question is concluded by 
 the vote of last Friday, nothing can be more ridiculous. This House 
 never can be so bound. If it could, then may it any hour be made 
 the victim of surprise, and the utmost encouragement is held out to 
 tricks and manoeuvres. If you voted too many men before, you can 
 now make that vote harmless and inoperative by withholding the sup- 
 plies necessary for keeping those men on foot. As well may it be 
 contended that the House is precluded from throwing out a bill on 
 the third reading, because it affirmed the principle by its vote on the 
 second, and sanctioned the details, by receiving the committee's 
 report. 
 
 The estimate before you is 385,000, for the support of S100 
 guards. Adopt my honourable friend's amendment,* and you reduce 
 them to about 4000, which i& still somewhat above their number in 
 the last peace. 
 
 Sir, I have done. I have discharged my duty to the country I 
 have accepted the challenge of the ministers to discuss the question 
 I have rnet them fairly, and grappled with the body of the argument. 
 I may very possibly have failed to convince the House that this estab- 
 
 * Mr. Calcraft.
 
 ARMY ESTIMATES. 333 
 
 lisliment is enormous and unjustifiable, whether we regard the bur- 
 thcried condition of the country, or the tranquil state of its affairs at 
 home, or the universal repose in which the world is lulled, or the 
 experience of former times, or the mischievous tendency of large 
 standing armies in a constitutional point of view, or the dangerous 
 nature of the arguments urged in their support upon the present 
 occasion. All this I feel very deeply; and I am also very sensible 
 how likely it is that on taking another view you should come to an 
 opposite determination. Be it so I have done my duty I have 
 entered my protest. It cannot be laid to my charge that a force is to 
 be maintained in profound and general peace, twice as great as was 
 formerly deemed sufficient when all Europe was involved in domestic 
 troubles, and war raged in some parts and was about to spread over 
 the whole. It is not my fault that peace will have returned without 
 its accustomed blessings that our burthens are to remain undimin- 
 ished that our liberties are to be menaced by a standing army without 
 the pretence of necessity in any quarter to justify its continuance. 
 The blame is not mine that a brilliant and costly army of household 
 troops, of unprecedented numbers, is allowed to the Crown, without 
 the shadow of use, unless it be to pamper a vicious appetite for mili- 
 tary show, to gratify a passion for parade, childish and contemptible, 
 unless, indeed, that nothing can be an object of contempt which is at 
 once dangerous to the constitution of the country, and burthensome 
 to the resources of the people. I shall further record my resistance to 
 this system by my vote; and never did I give my voice to any propo- 
 sition with more hearty satisfaction than I now do to the amendment 
 of my honourable friend,
 
 HOLY ALLIANCE. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 HOLY ALLIANCE EMPEROR ALEXANDER LORD CASTLEREAOH 
 
 MR. HORNER. 
 
 SOON after the settlement of affairs subsequent to the battle of Waterloo, the 
 three sovereigns who had borne the principal part in the military operations by 
 which the war was closed, entered into certain engagements with each other by a 
 convention, the object of which they asserted to be the preservation of the peace 
 just concluded. They named this the " Christian Treaty," and their alliance the 
 " Christian Alliance ,-" but it soon came to be called by the world, as well as by the 
 parties themselves, the " Holy Jllliance" It bore date at Paris, the 2Glh Sep- 
 tember 1815; and is certainly a document of a very singular description, and of a 
 most suspicious character. The contracting parties, the two Emperors, and the 
 Prussian King, begin by acknowledging their obligations to Heaven for their late 
 deliverance, and stating that the interence drawn by them from thence, is the ne- 
 cessity of rulers forming their conduct upon the "sublime truths" which "the 
 holy religion of our Saviour teaches;" and they further declare, that they have no 
 other object in this treaty than to proclaim before the world their resolution to take 
 for their guide the precepts of the Christian religion namely justice, charity, and 
 peace. The articles of the Treaty are three. In the first, the parties bind them- 
 selves to remain united as brethren in the " bonds of true and indissoluble fra- 
 ternity," " to lend each other aid and assistance as fellow-countrymen, on all occa- 
 sions and in all places, and conducting themselves towards their armies and 
 subjects as fathers of families, to lead them in the same spirit of fraternity to 
 protect religion, peace, and justice." The second article declares the only principle 
 in force between the throe governments to be doing each other reciprocal service 
 and testifying mutual good-will; and it avows that they all form branches of "one 
 family, one Christian nation, having in reality no other sovereign than Him in whom 
 alone are found all the treasures of love, science, and infinite wisdom; that is to 
 say, God our Divine Saviour, the word of the Most High, the word of life." The 
 article concludes with earnestly recommending to their people the " strengthening 
 themselves more and more every day in the principles and the exercise of the 
 duties which the Divine Saviour has taught mankind." The third article an- 
 nounces, that whatever powers shall " solemnly avow the same sacred principles, 
 and acknowledge the importance of the above truths being suffered to exercise full 
 influence over the destinies of mankind, will be received with equal ardour and 
 affection into this Holy Alliance." Contrary to all the accustomed forms of diplo- 
 macy, the treaty was only signed by the three monnrchs themselves, without any 
 mention whatever bring 1 made of ambassadors, ministers, or other representatives, 
 as engaged in the negotiation. 
 
 When this extraordinary transaction carno to be known, it naturally excited groat 
 attention, and gave birth to many suspicions. That these powerful monarchs 
 should make a great treaty for no other purpose than to avow their religious fervour, 
 and preach the Christian doctrine for tho benefit of their subjects, and should form 
 an alliance, having no other object than to profess together those doctrines, and in 
 concert to practice them, seemed altogether unaccountable. This, of itself, would 
 have been sufficient to awaken grave suspicions that much moro was meant by
 
 336 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 this confederacy than met the eye. But to this was to be added the previous rela- 
 tions of alliance, offensive and defensive, which had subsisted between the same 
 princes, and far from ending in sermons upon the duties of a Christian man, had 
 brought into the field of battle above half a million of Christian men in full armour. 
 There were indeed some parts of this curious document itself, which pointed 
 pretty plainly at operations of the flesh rather than the spirit, and gave indications 
 sufficiently manifest of the designs in which it originated, or at any rate of the 
 proceedings to which it might lead. The first and fundamental article bound the 
 parties to lead their armies in the spirit of fraternity, for the protection of religion, 
 peace, and justice. Now, under a description so very vague and large as this, 
 almost any objects might be comprehended: and men did not fail to remark, that 
 there had hardly ever been a war of the most unjust aggression begun without lavish 
 professions that its only design was to see justice done, and obtain a secure and 
 honourable peace. 
 
 Against these very natural suspicions, nothing could be set except the pious 
 language of the treaty, which of course went for little, and the peculiar character of 
 the Emperor Alexander, its chief promoter, which went for not much more. This 
 prince was said to have lately become a convert to some sect of religious enthu- 
 siasts, a distinguished professor among whom was a certain Madame Krudener, 
 one of those mystical devotees, half evangelical, half metaphysical, with which 
 Germany abounds. The Alliance was represented as the result of this holy 
 female's inspirations, and the first fruits of her influence over the Autocratic neo- 
 phyte. The phrase was, and Lord Castlereagh, when questioned in Parliament, 
 gave the matter this turn, that the whole was a mere innocent act, an amiable 
 fancy of his Imperial Majesty, in which England and France were only prevented 
 from joining, by the forms of their diplomacy excluding direct negotiation and treat- 
 ing by the sovereign, but which, as it could not possibly lead to any practical con- 
 sequences, was not worth objecting to, or commenting upon. 
 
 The Emperor Alexander, upon whose individual nature, habits, or caprices, this 
 explanation and defence turned, was, after the fall of Napoleon, by far the most 
 distinguished prince in Europe, whether, we regard the magnitude of the affairs 
 in which he had been engaged, the extraordinary fortune that had attended his 
 arts rather than his arms, or the vast empire over which he despotically ruled. But 
 although by no means an ordinary man, and, still less an ordinary monarch, he 
 owed his influence and his name very much more to the accidental circumstances 
 of his position, and to the errors committed by Napoleon, first in Spain, then in the 
 North, than either to any very admirable personal qualities received from nature, or 
 to any considerable accomplishments derived from education. His preceptor, 
 Colonel La Harpe, though a very worthy and intelligent man, was distinguished 
 neither by profound genius, nor great scientific acquirements; and from his instruc- 
 tions the Imperial pupil could not be said to have profited greatly. His knowledge 
 was exceedingly superficial; and never relying on his own resources, he adopted 
 the royal plan of previously ascertaining what were the pursuits of those he would 
 converse with, and picking up at second-hand a few common-places with which 
 to regale his guests, who, expecting little from an Emperor, and interdicted from 
 anything like discussion by the etiquette of a court, were sure to leave the presence 
 deeply impressed with his information and his powers. If he was superficial in 
 general knowledge, he could not be said to have any great capacity either for 
 civil or military affairs. To tell that he constantly pursued the Russian policy, of 
 invariably gaining some accession of territory, be it ever so little, in whatever war 
 he might be engaged, and that his treaties of peace never formed any exception to 
 this Muscovite rule, is only to say that he followed in the train of all his prede- 
 cessors from Peter the First downwards. Placed in circumstances of unprece- 
 dented peril, no passage of his life can be referred to in proof of any resources being 
 displayed by him, which the most ordinary of princes would not have shown 
 himself possessed of. Stimulated by the exigencies of so many great emergencies, 
 he never rose with the occasion, and unlike any one with pretensions to eminence, 
 was generally found most wanting when the crisis was the most trying. At his 
 accession, he found the armed neutrality of the North discomfited by the battle 
 of Copenhagen; and he at once yielded all the points for which his father, a far
 
 HOLY ALLIANCE. 337 
 
 superior though an eccentric man, had contended, unawed by any difficulties, and 
 unsubdued by any reverses. Joining the third coalition against France, but pos- 
 sessing no general who like Suwarrow could lead his armies to victory, he sus- 
 tained one of the most memorable overthrows recorded in history, and was 
 compelled to purchase peace, and escape invasion, by abandoning the alliance into 
 which he had voluntarily entered. Stricken to the heart with the fear of France, 
 and hardly knowing whether to seek for safety in resistance or in submission to 
 her dictation, he again had recourse to war, for which he had no kind of genius. 
 Again defeated in one of the greatest and most decisive battles of modern times, 
 he formed the closest alliance with his victorious enemy, who soon found it easy 
 to mould which way soever he pleased a person quite as vain and as shallow as he 
 was nimble and plausible. At length came the great crisis both of Alexander's 
 fate and of the world's. Napoleon, obstinately bent on subduing the Peninsula, 
 while he continued to make war in the North, was worsted repeatedly by the 
 English arms; pushed his forces in unexampled numbers through Germany, to 
 attack the Russian Empire; and penetrated to its ancient capital, after many bloody 
 engagements, and an immense loss sustained on either side. The savage determi- 
 nation of Rostopschin prevented, by burning the city, a renewal on the Moskwa of 
 the scenes five years before enacted on the Niemen. Alexander was prevented 
 from making peace and tendering submission, by the enterprising spirit of that bar- 
 barous chief, and the prompt decision and resolute determination of Sir Robert 
 Wilson. The inclemency of an unusually early and severe northern winter did all 
 the rest, and Europe was saved by the physical powers brought happily to bear 
 upon and to destroy the greatest army ever sent into the field.* No trait of mili- 
 tary genius no passage of civil capacity no instance of shining public virtue 
 can be cited as displayed by him during a struggle so singularly calculated to 
 draw forth men's powers, to fire them with generous ardour, to nerve their arms with 
 new vigour, to kindle the sparks of latent genius until it blazed out to enlighten and 
 to save a world. 
 
 When the struggle was over, and his empire restored to peace, he showed no 
 magnanimous gratitude to the brave people who had generously made such unpa- 
 ralleled sacrifices, and had cheerfully suffered such cruel miseries for the defence of 
 his crown. He joined his royal associates in breaking all the promises that had 
 been made during the perils of the war; and in imitating the very worst part of his 
 conduct, whom, with the words of justice, peace, and right on their lips, they had, 
 with the aid of their gallant subjects, overthrown. His shallow vanity was dis- 
 played during the visit of the Princes to England. When, among, other party lead- 
 ers, Lord Grenville was presented to him, he thought it was hitting on an excel- 
 lent improvement in the conduct of party concerns, to recommend that, instead of 
 urging objections in Parliament to the ministerial measures, the opposition should 
 seek private audiences of their adversaries from time to time, and confidentially 
 offer their objections, or propose their amendments. Nor was this vain and super- 
 ficial prince made at all sensible of the folly he had committed, by the somewhat 
 peremptory negative which a few characteristic words and gestures of the veteran 
 party man suddenly put upon his shallow and ignorant scheme. Although the 
 emperor repeatedly testified a somewhat marked disrespect for our regent, he yet 
 suffered himself to be overpowered by the Carlton House emissaries, and avoided 
 the ordinary civility of visiting the Princess of Wales, then, as always, the object 
 
 * There arc few things more finely imagined than a passage written by the late eloquent 
 and ingenious Mr. John Scott upon this great event. Alter describing the vast bustle and 
 painful effects of the military preparations and exertion*, which left the whole affair un- 
 decided, lie notes the mighty contrast presented by the ctill and MI Mum energies of nature 
 Flakes of a white substance, during a few hours, fall through the air in deep silence, ami 
 all is settled for ever. 
 
 Hi moliiH animorum, attjiie hone ccrtamina tanta 
 I'ulveris exigui jactu compressa quicxcunU 
 
 This ia the same gentleman who wrote the paper on Military Punishment?, for which 
 the Hunts and Mr. Drikard were prosecuted. 
 VOL. J. 29
 
 338 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of her royal husband's unceasing persecutions. The English people drew from 
 thence a conclusion highly unfavourable to the independence of his character, as 
 well as to the kindliness of his nature; and he made quite as little impression upon 
 them as his more unpretending, though certainly not much less distinguished bro- 
 ther of Prussia. 
 
 His reputation for honesty stood extremely low, even among persons of his pre- 
 eminent station. Napoleon, who knew his imperial brother thoroughly, applied to 
 him the uncourtly, and indeed rather unceremonious description of "faux, fin, et 
 fuurbe, comme un Grec du bos empire." It would be highly unjust to tax him with 
 any participation in his father's murder; nor would the certainty, if it existed, of 
 his privity to it, be any stain upon his character, unless we were also assured, con- 
 trary to all probability, that he had any power whatever to prevent it. But he was 
 certainly bound in common decency to discountenance, if he dared not punish, the 
 men whose daggers had opened for him the way to a throne; and more unthinking 
 folly, greater indecorum, worse judgment in every way, can hardly be imagined, 
 than his referring to the blood shed in palaces, when he issued, with his confede- 
 rates, the manifesto against Spain, alluded to in the following speech. His course 
 was marked by no displays either of princely or of private virtues of munificence, 
 of magnanimity, of self-denial, of plain-dealing. Nor did the extraordinary pre- 
 tences to religion, which marked his latter years, succeed in deceiving anyone, but 
 such as were, either from the adulation of the court, or the enthusiasm of the con- 
 venticle, willing and even anxious to be deluded. Among such dupes, he passed 
 for somewhat more pious than his royal compeers; but few were, even in that class, 
 found so charitable as to believe in his honesty, or to suppose that under the pro- 
 fessions of the Christian treaty, there lurked no hidden designs of a purely secular 
 and strictly royal description.* 
 
 The denial first, the explanation afterwards, finally the defence of the Holy Alli- 
 ance, devolved upon one who had been the associate of the three Sovereigns in 
 that distribution of European dominion, which their unlooked-for good fortune, ari- 
 sing principally from a severe winter and Napoleon's obstinate ambition, had 
 thrown into their hands. Lord Castlereagh seemed still less intended by nature to 
 bear the part which fell to his share in such mighty transactions, than the allied 
 princes themselves. That we should have lived to see, twice over, the march to 
 Paris, which for so many years had been the bye-word for a military impossibility, 
 an: 1 long after events seemed to have rendered the idea still more absurd than when 
 its first promulgation clothed the propounder in never-dying ridicule, was indeed 
 sufficiently marvellons. But it appeared, if possible, yet more incredible, that we 
 should witness Lord Castlereagh entering the House of Commons, and resuming 
 amidst universal shouts of applause, the seat which he had quitted for a season to 
 attend as a chief actor in the new arrangement of Continental territory, the restora- 
 tion of old monarchies and the creation of new, when Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Fox, and 
 Mr. Windham, had never even aspired to more than rescuing their own country 
 from the war without positive disgrace, and even Mr. Burke had only looked to the 
 restoration of the Bourbon throne by the efforts of the French themselves, and had 
 been treated as a visionary for indulging in so wild a hope. 
 
 Few men of more limited capacity, or more meagre acquirements than Lord 
 Castlereagh possessed, had before his time ever risen to any station of eminence 
 in our free country; fewer still have long retained it in a state, where mere court 
 intrigue and princely favour have so little to do with men's advancement. But we 
 have lived to see persons of more obscure merit than Lord Castlereagh rise to 
 equal station in this country. Of sober and industrious habits, and become pos- 
 sessed of business-like talents by long experience, he was a person of the most 
 common-place abilities. He had a reasonable quickness of apprehension and 
 clearness of understanding, but nothing brilliant or in any way admirable marked 
 either his conceptions or his elocution. Nay, to judge of his intellect by his elo- 
 quence, we should certainly have formed a very unfair estimate of its perspicacity. 
 For, though it was hardly possible to underrate its extent or comprehensiveness, it 
 
 * The selection of sucli eminent diplomatic talents as adorn and distinguish the Lievens 
 and the Pozzos, appears to have been his greatest praise.
 
 HOLY ALLIANCE. 339 
 
 was very far from being confused and perplexed in the proportion of his sentences; 
 and the listener who knew how distinctly the speaker could form his plans, and 
 how clearly his ideas were known to himself, might, comparing small things wilh 
 preat, be reminded of the prodigious contrast between the distinctness of Oliver 
 Cromwell's understanding, and the hopeless confusion and obscurity of his speech. 
 No man, besides, ever attained the station of a regular debater in our Parliament 
 with such an entire want of all classical accomplishment, or indeed of all literary 
 provision whatsoever. While he never showed the least symptoms of an informa- 
 tion extending beyond the more recent volumes of the Parliamentary debates, or 
 possibly the files of the newspapers only, his diction set all imitation, perhaps all 
 description at defiance. It was with some an amusement to beguile the tedious 
 hours of their unavoidable attendance upon the poor, tawdry, ravelled thread of 
 his sorry discourse, to collect a kind of ana from the fragments of mixed, incon- 
 gruous, and disjointed images that frequently appeared in it. "The features of 
 the clause" "the ignorant impatience of the relaxation of taxation" "sets of 
 circumstances coming up and circumstances going down" "men turning their 
 backs upon themselves" "the honourable and learned gentlemen's wedge getting 
 into the loyal feelings of the manufacturing classes" "the constitutional principle 
 wound up in the bowels of the monarchical principle" "the Herculean labour of 
 the honourable and learned member, who will find himself quite disappointed when 
 he has at last brought forth his Hercules" (by a slight confounding of the mo- 
 ther's labour, who produced that hero, wilh his own exploits which gained him, 
 immortality) these are but a few, and not the richest samples, by any means, of a 
 rhetoric which often baffled alike the gravity of the treasury bench and the art of the 
 reporter, and left the wondering audience at a loss to conjecture how any one could 
 ever exist, endowed with humbler pretensions to the name of orator. Wherefore, 
 when the tory party " having a devil," preferred him to Mr. Canning for their 
 leader, all men naturally expected that he would entirely fail to command even the 
 attendance of the House while he addressed it; and that the benches, empty during 
 his time, would only be replenished when his highly gifted competitor rose. They 
 were greatly deceived; they underrated the effect of place and power; they forgot 
 that the representative of a government speaks "as one having authority, and not 
 as the scribes." Hut they also forgot that Lord Castloreagh had some qualities 
 well-fitted to conciliate favour, and even to provoke admiration, in the absence of 
 everything like eloquence. He was a bold and fearless man; the very courage 
 with which he exposed himself unabashed to the most critical audience in the world, 
 while incapable of uttering two sentences of anything but the meanest matter, in 
 the most wretched language; the gallantry with which he faced the greatest diffi- 
 culties of a quesiion; the unflinching perseverance with which he went through a 
 whole subject, leaving untouched not one of its points, whether he could grapple 
 with it or no, and not one of the adverse arguments, however forcibly and felici- 
 tously they had been urged, neither daunted by recollecting the impression just 
 made by his antagonist's brilliant display, nor damped by consciousness of the 
 very rags in which he now presented himself all thi* made him upon the whole 
 rather a favourite with the audience whose patience he was taxing mercilessly, and 
 whose gravity he ever and anon put to a very severe trial. Nor can any one have 
 forgotten the kitid of pride that mantled on th;> fronts of the Tory phalanx, when, 
 after being overwhelmed with the powerful lire of the Whig opposition, or galled 
 by the fierce denunciations of the mountain, or harassed by the, splendid displays 
 of Mr. Canning, their chosen leader stood forth, and presenting the graces of his 
 eminently patrician figure, flung open his coat, displayed an a/.ure ribbon travers- 
 ing a snow white chest, and declared " bis high satisfaction that he could now 
 meet the charges against him face to face, and repel with indignation all that his 
 adversaries had been bold and rash enough to advance." 
 
 Such he was in debate; in council he certainly had far more resources. lie 
 possessed a considerable fund of pi, tin sense, not to bo misled by any refinement 
 of speculation, or clouded by any fanciful notions, lie went straight to his point; 
 he was brave politically as well as personally. Of this, his conduct on the 
 Irish Union bad given abundant proof; iind nothing could be mure just than the 
 rebuke which, as connected wilh thu topic of personal courage, we may recollect
 
 340 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 his administering to a great man who had passed the limits of Parliamentary cour- 
 tesy "Every one must be sensible," he said, "that if any personal quarrel were 
 desired, any insulting language used publicly, where it could not be met as it de- 
 served, was the way to prevent and not to produce such a rencounter." No one 
 after that treated him with disrespect. The complaints made of his Irish admi- 
 nistration were perfectly well grounded as regarded the corruption of the Parlia- 
 ment by which he accomplished the union; but they were entirely unfounded as 
 regarded the cruelties practised during and after the rebellion. Far from partaking 
 in these atrocities, he uniformly and strenuously set his face against them. He 
 was of a cold temperament and determined character, but not of a cruel disposi- 
 tion; and to him, more than perhaps to any one else, was owing the termination of 
 the system stained with blood. 
 
 His foreign administration was as destitute of all merit as possible. No enlarged 
 views guided his conduct; no liberal principles claimed his regard; no generous 
 sympathies, no grateful feelings for the people whose sufferings and whose valour 
 had accomplished the restoration of their national independence, prompted his 
 tongue, when he carried forth from the land of liberty that influence which she had 
 a right to exercise she who had made such vast sacrifices, and was never in return 
 to reap any the least selfish advantage. The representative of England among 
 those Powers whom her treasure and her arms had done so much to save, he ought 
 to have held the language becoming a free state, and claimed for justice and for 
 liberty the recognition which we had the better right to demand, that we gained no- 
 thing for ourselves, after all our sufferings, and all our expenditure of blood as well 
 as money. Instead of this, he flung himself at once and for ever into the arms of 
 the sovereigns seemed to take a vulgar pride in being suffered to become their asso- 
 ciate appeared desirous, with the vanity of an upstart elevated unexpectedly into 
 higher circles, of forgetting what he had been, and qualifying himself for the com- 
 pany he now kept, by assuming their habits and never pronounced any of those 
 words so familiar with the English nation and with English statesmen, in the 
 mother tongue of a limited monarchy, for fear they might be deemed low-bred, and 
 unsuited to the society of crowned heads, in which he was living, and to which 
 they might prove as distasteful as they were unaccustomed. 
 
 It is little to be wondered at, that those potentates found him ready enough with 
 his defence of their Holy Alliance. When it was attacked in 1816, he began by 
 denying that it meant anything at all. He afterwards explained it away as a mere 
 pledge of pacific intentions, and a new security for the stability of the settlement 
 made by the Congress of Vienna. Finally, when he was compelled to depart from 
 the monstrous principles of systematic interference to which it gave birth, and to 
 establish which it was originally intended, he made so tardy, so cold, so reluctant 
 a protest against the general doctrine of the allies, that the influence of England 
 could not be said to have been exerted at all in behalf of national independence, 
 even if the protest had been unaccompanied with a carte blanche to the allies for all 
 the injuries they were offering to particular states in the genuine spirit of the sys- 
 tem protested against. The allies issued from Troppau one manifesto, from Ley- 
 bach another, against the free constitution which had just been established at Na- 
 ples by a military force co-operating with a movement of the people. On the eve 
 of the Parliament meeting (19th Jan. 1821,) Lord Castlereagh delivered a note 
 to the Holy Allies, expressing in feeble and measured terms a very meagre dissent 
 from the principle of interference; but adding a peremptory disapproval of the means 
 by which the Neapolitan revolution had been effected, and indicating very plainly 
 that England would allow whatever they chose to do for the purpose of putting 
 down the new government and restoring the old. It is certain that this kind of re- 
 volution is of all others the very worst, and to liberty the most unpropitious. It is 
 also probable that the people of Naples knew not what they sought; nay, when 
 they proclaimed the Spanish Constitution, it is said there was no copy of it to be 
 found in the whole city. Nevertheless the same kind of military movement had 
 produced the destruction of the same constitution in Spain, and restored the power 
 and prerogative of Ferdinand; and no exception had been ever taken to it, in that 
 instance, either by the Holy Allies or by England. There could be no doubt what- 
 ever, that this mode of effecting changes in a government was only displeasing to
 
 HOLY ALLIANCE. 341 
 
 those parties when the change happened to be of a popular kind, and that a mili- 
 tary revolution to restore or to found a de<polic government, was a thing perfectly 
 to their liking. Thus faintly dissented from as to tho principle, and not even faintly 
 opposed as to the particular instance, the three sovereigns deputed one of their 
 number to march, and the Austrian troops ended, in a few days, all that the Neapo- 
 litan army had done in as many hours. 
 
 But late in 182-2, Spain, or rather Madrid, again hecame the scene of a revolu- 
 tionary movement; and the people obtained once more a free form of government. 
 Again the Holy Allies were at work; and, on this occasion, their manifestos were 
 directed to arm France with the authority of the League. First, an army was as- 
 sembled on the Spanish frontier, under the stale pretext of some infectious disor- 
 der requiring a sanatory cordon; the same pretext on which the predecessors of the 
 Holy Allies had in former times surrounded unhappy Poland with their armed 
 hordes the only difference being, that an epidemic was in that instance said to be 
 raging among the cattle, and now it was supposed to be the plague among men. 
 A great change, had, however, now taken place in the British department of Fo- 
 reign affairs. Lord Castlereagh's sudden death had changed Mr. Canning's In- 
 dian destination, and placed him both at the head of the Foreign Office, and in the 
 lead of the House of Commons. His views were widely different from those of 
 his predecessor. He was justly jealous of the whole principles and policy of the 
 Holy Alliance: he was disgusted with the courtly language of the crafty and cruel 
 despots who, under the mask of religious zeal, were enslaving Europe; he was in- 
 dignant at the subservient part in those designs which England had been playing; 
 and he was resolved that this obsequiousness should no longer disgrace his coun- 
 try. In America, he was determined that the colonies of Spain should be recog- 
 nized as clothed with the independence which they had purchased by their valour; 
 in Europe, he was fixed in the design of unchaining England from the chariot 
 wheels of the Holy Allies. When Parliament met, the speech from the Throne 
 contained some indications of these principles; and more were given by the minis- 
 terial speakers who began the debate on the address. The following speech was 
 delivered on that occasion by Mr. Brougham, who had, almost unsupported seven 
 years before, denounced the Holy Alliance, and moved for the production of the 
 Christian Treaty of September 1815, which Lord Casilereagh, on the pretences 
 already described, had refused. 
 
 Although on that earlier occasion he had met with hardly any support from the 
 regular leaders of the Whig party, h had yet obtained the countenance, to him of 
 all others the most grateful, of Sir Samuel Romilly and Mr. Homer. Of the 
 former, opportunity has already been given to speak; it is fit something should hero 
 be said of the latter, upon an occasion certainly connected with that on which he 
 made- the most remarkable of the displays that won for him the admiration of the 
 House of Commons, and made the sorrow fur a loss, as premature as it was irre- 
 parable, the more lasting. 
 
 Mr. Homer having entered public life without any advantage of rank or fortune, 
 had in a very short time raised himself to a high place among the members of the 
 Whig party, (to which he was attached alike from sincere conviction, and from 
 private friendship with its chiefs,) by the effect of a most honourable and virtuous 
 character in private life, a steady adherence to moderate opinions in politics, talents 
 of a very high order, and information at once accurate i'.iul extensive upon all sub- 
 jects connected with state affairs. Not that his studies had been confined to these; 
 for his education, chiefly at Edinburgh, had hern most liberal, and had put him in 
 possession of far more knowledge upon the subjects of general philosophy, than 
 falls to the lot of most English statesmen. All the departments of moral science 
 lie had cultivated in an especial manner; and he was well grounded in the rxacter 
 sciences, although he had not pursued these with the same assiduity. The pro- 
 fession of the law, which he followed, rather disciplined his mind than distracted 
 it from the more attractive and elegant pursuits of literary leisure; and his taste, 
 the guid(! and control of eloquence, was manly and chaste!, erring on the safer side 
 of fastidiousness. Accordingly, when he joined hi.s party in Parliament, his or.itorv 
 was of a kind which never tailed to produce a very great effect, and he only did
 
 342 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 not reach the highest place among debaters, because he was cut off prematurely, 
 while steadily advancing upon the former successes of his career. For although 
 in the House of Commons he had never given the reins to his imagination, and had 
 rather confined himself to powerful argument and luminous statement than in- 
 dulged in declamation, they who knew him, and had heard him in other debates, 
 were aware of his powers as a declaimer, and expected the day which should see 
 him shining in the more ornamental parts of oratory. The great question of the 
 currency had been thoroughly studied by him at an early period of life, when 
 the writings of Mr. Henry Thornton and Lord King first opened men's eyes to the 
 depreciation which Mr. Pitt's ill-starred policy had occasioned. With the former 
 he had partaken of the doubts by which his work left the question overcast in 1802; 
 the admirable and indeed decisive demonstration of the latter in the next year, 
 entirely removed those doubts; and Mr. Homer, following up the able paper upon 
 the subject, which he had contributed to the Edinburgh Review at its first appear- 
 ance, with a second upon Lord King's work, avowed his conversion, and joined 
 most powerfully with those who asserted that the currency had been depreciated, 
 and the metallic money displaced by the inconvertible bank paper. In 1810, he 
 moved for that famous Bullion Committee, whose labours left no doubt of the 
 matter in the mind of any rational person endowed with even a tolerable clearness 
 of understanding; and the two speeches which he made, upon moving his resolutions 
 the year after, may justly be regarded as finished models of eloquence applied to 
 such subjects. The fame which they acquired for him was great, solid, lasting; 
 and though they might be surpassed, they were certainly not eclipsed, by the 
 wonderful resources of close argument, profound knowledge, and brilliant ora- 
 tory, which Mr. Canning brought to bear upon the question, and of which no one 
 more constantly than Mr. Homer acknowledged the transcendent merits. 
 
 When the subject of the Holy Alliance was brought forward by Mr. Brougham, 
 early in the session of 1816, Mr. Homer, who had greatly distinguished himself 
 on all the questions connected with what the Ministers pleasantly called "the 
 final settlement of Europe," during the absence of the former from Parliament, 
 was now found honestly standing by his friend, and almost alone of the regular 
 Whig party declared his belief in the deep-laid conspiracy, which the hypocriti- 
 cal phrases and specious pretences of the allies were spread out to cover. The 
 part he took upon the debate to which the treaties gave rise, showed that there 
 was no portion of the famous arrangements made at Vienna, to which he had not 
 sedulously and successfully directed his attention. His speech on that occasion 
 was admitted to be one of the best ever delivered in Parliament; and it was truly 
 refreshing to hear questions of foreign policy, usually discussed with the super- 
 ficial knowledge, the narrow and confused views to be expected in the produc- 
 tions of ephemeral pens, now treated with a dopth of calm reflection, an enlarged 
 perception of relations, and a provident forethought of consequences, only ex- 
 ceeded by the spirit of freedom and justice which animated the whole discourse, 
 and the luminous clearness of statement which made its drift plain to every hearer. 
 
 But this able, accomplished, and excellent person was now approaching the 
 term assigned to his useful and honourable course by the mysterious dispensa- 
 tions under which the world is ruled. A complication of extraordinary maladies 
 soon afterwards precluded all further exertion, and, first confining his attention 
 to the care of his health, before a year was over from the date of his last brilliant 
 display, brought him deeply and universally lamented to an untimely grave.* 
 
 * It deserves to be noted, as a marvellous instance of that truly learned conjecture by 
 which the skill of Dr. Baillie was distinguished, that after many other physicians had 
 severally given their opinions on the nature of Mr. Homer's hidden complaints, Dr. 
 Baillie at once decided against all those theories; but, when he came to propose his 
 own, avowed the extreme uncertainty in which so obscure and difficult a case had left 
 him. However, he said that he guessed it was one or the other of two maladies so rare 
 that he had only seen a case or two of the one, and the other never but in a Museum of 
 morbid anatomy. When the body was opened by Vacca at Pisa, where he died, it was 
 found that both those rare diseases existed.
 
 HOLY ALLIANCE. 343 
 
 "Oslendent tcrris hunc lantum fata, neqtie ultra 
 Essc sinent. Nimium vobis Romana propago 
 Visa potens, Supcri, propria Jiffic si dona luissent!" 
 
 When the new writ was moved, on his decease, for the burgh of St. Mawes, 
 which he represented, Lord Morpeth* gave a striking sketch of his character. 
 Mr. Canning, Sir S. Romilly, Mr. W. Elliott, and others, joined in the conversa- 
 tion, and Mr. H. Lascellesf observed, with universal assent, that if the form of 
 the proceeding could have admitted of a question being put upon Mr. Horner's merits, 
 there would not have been heard one dissentient voice. 
 
 Now Lord Carlisle. t Now Lord Harcwood
 
 SPEECH 
 
 THE WAR WITH SPAIN. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 
 FEBRUARY 4, 1823. 
 
 I RISE in consequence of the appeal made to every member of the 
 House by the gallant officer* who lias just sat down, to declare my 
 sentiments: I ansvver that appeal, which does credit to the honour, to 
 the English feeling of- that gallant officer; and I join with him, and 
 with every man who deserves the name of Briton, in unqualified 
 abhorrence and detestation of the audacious interference to which he 
 has alluded; or if that execration is at all qualified, it can only be by 
 contempt and disgust at the canting hypocrisy of the language in 
 which the loathsome principles of the tyrants are promulgated to the 
 world. ! have risen to make this declaration, called upon as I am in 
 common with every member, but I should ill discharge my duty, if I 
 did not mark my sense of the candour of the two Honourable gen- 
 tlemen who have moved and seconded the address, and express my 
 satisfaction at what, in the House, howeverdivided upon other points, 
 will be almost, and certainly in the country will be quite unanimously 
 felt to be, the sound and liberal view which they have taken of this 
 great affair. Indeed, I know not, circumstanced as they were, that 
 they could go farther; or even that His Majesty's ministers, in the 
 present state of this very delicate question, ought to have gone beyond 
 the communication of to-day- That communication, coupled with the 
 commentary of the honourable mover, will be the tidings of joy, and 
 the signal for exultation to England it will spread gladness and ex- 
 ultation over Spain will be a source of comfort to all other free 
 states and will bring confusion and dismay to the allies, who, with 
 a pretended respect, but a real mockery. of religion and morality, 
 make war upon liberty in the abstract; endeavour to crush national 
 independence wherever it is to be found; and are now preparing, with 
 
 * Sir. J. Yorke.
 
 WAR WITH SPAIN. 345 
 
 their armed hordes, to carry into execution their frightful projects. 
 That Spain will take comfort from the principles avowed in the House 
 this evening, I am certain; and I am not less clear, that the handful of 
 men at present surrounding the throne of our nearest and most inter- 
 esting neighbour, (who, -by the way, has somehow or other been in- 
 duced to swerve from the prudent councils which had till of late 
 guided his course) will feel astonished and dismayed with the proceed- 
 ings of this day, in proportion as others are encouraged. Cheering, 
 however, as is the prevalence of such sentiments; highly as they raise 
 the character of the nation, and much as may be augured from their 
 effects, still I think no man can deny, that the country is at present 
 approaching to a crisis such as has not occurred perhaps for above a 
 century, certainly not since the French revolution. Whether we view 
 the internal condition of the kingdom, and the severe distress which 
 press upon that most important and most useful branch of the com- 
 munity, the farmers; or cast our eyes upon our foreign relations, our 
 circumstances must appear, to the mind of every thinking man, critical 
 and alarming. They may, it is true, soon wear a better aspect, and 
 we may escape the calamities of war; but he must be a bold and 
 possibly a rash man, certainly not a very thoughtful one, who can 
 take upon him to foretell that so happy a fortune shall be ours. 
 
 It is the deep consideration of these things which induces me to 
 come forward and make a declaration of my principles; and to state 
 that, with a strict adherence to the most rigid economy in every de- 
 partment, the reduction of establishments which I am at all times, if 
 not the first, at least among the foremost, to support, and which is so 
 necessary, in the ordinary circumstances of the country, must now be 
 recommended, with a certain modification, in order to adapt our poli- 
 cy to the present emergency. I am guilty of no inconsistency what- 
 ever, in thus qualifying the doctrine of unsparing retrenchment; 
 indeed, the greater the chance of some extraordinary demand upon 
 our resources, from the aspect of affairs abroad, the more imperious is 
 the necessity of sparing every particle of expense not absolutely re- 
 quisite. Economy to its utmost extent, I still recommend as politic, 
 and urge as due to the people of right; and every expense is now to 
 be regarded as more inexcusable than ever, both because the country 
 is suffering more severely, and because it may become necessary soon 
 to increase some parts of our establishment. 1 say I am certainly 
 not prepared to propose, or to suffer, as far as my voice goes, any the 
 least reduction of our naval force, to the extent even of a single ship 
 or seaman; on the contrary, I fear the time may not be distant when 
 its increase will be required. Any such augmentation of the army, I 
 cannot conceive to be justifiable in almost any circumstances; for hap- 
 pen what may, a war on our part, carried on with the wasteful and 
 scandalous profusion of the last, and upon the same vast scale, or any- 
 thing like it, is wholly out of the question. 
 
 [Mr. Brougham entered at some length into the internal state of 
 the country tho indications of distress at the various meetings the 
 inconsistency of the violent attacks made upon the Norfolk petition by
 
 346 HOLY ALLIANCE. 
 
 those who had passed the Gold Coin Bill of 1811, which enacted the 
 parts of the Norfolk plan most liable to objection the inadequacy of 
 any relief to be obtained from repeal of taxes that only affected small 
 districts the absolute necessity of repealing a large amount of the 
 taxes pressing generally on all classes and, for this purpose, he urged 
 the necessity of a saving wherever it could be effected with safety; 
 and, at any rate, of giving up the sinking fund. He then proceeded:] 
 
 1 think, then, that if war were once commenced, we should soon be 
 compelled to take some part in it, one way or other, and that for such 
 an emergency, every shilling which can be saved by the most riged 
 economy, should be reserved. I think our intervention in some shape 
 will become unavoidable. We are bound, for instance, to assist one 
 party, our old ally Portugal, if she should be attacked; and it is not 
 likely that she can remain neuter, if the present hateful conspiracy 
 against Spain shall end in open hostility. It is in this view of the 
 question that I differ from the gallant officer* who last spoke, and I 
 am glad that I could not collect from the honourable mover or second- 
 er, the ominous words " strict neutrality " as applied to this coun- 
 try, in the threatened contest. A state of declared neutrality on our 
 part would be nothing less than a practical admission of those princi- 
 ples which we all loudly condemn, and a license to the commission of 
 all the atrocities which we are unanimous in deprecating. I will say, 
 therefore, that it is the duty of His Majesty's ministers, (with whom 
 I should rejoice in co-operating on the occasion and so I am certain, 
 would every one who now hears me, waving for a season all differ- 
 ences of opinion on lesser matters) to adopt and to announce the 
 resolution, that when certain things shall take place on the Continent, 
 they will be ready to assist the Spaniards a measure necessary to 
 avert evils, which even those the least prone to war (of which I 
 avow myself one) must admit to be inevitable, should a wavering or 
 pusillanimous course be pursued. Our assistance will be necessary 
 to resist the wicked enforcement of principles contrary to the law of 
 nations, and repugnant to every idea of national independence. 
 
 To judge of the principles now shamelessly promulgated, let any 
 man read patiently, if he can, the declarations in the notes of Russia, 
 Prussia, and Austria; and, with all due respect to those high authori- 
 ties, I will venture to say, that to produce anything more preposter- 
 ous, more absurd, more extravagant, better calculated to excite a 
 mingled feeling of disgust and derision, would baffle any chancery or 
 state-paper office in Europe. I shall not drag the House through the 
 whole nauseous details; I will only select a few passages, by way of 
 sample, from those notable productions of legitimate genius. 
 
 In the communication from the minister of his Prussian Majesty, 
 the constitution of 1812, restored in 1820, and now established, is de- 
 scribed as a system which "confounding all elements, and all power, 
 and assuming only the single principle of a permanent and legal oppo- 
 sition against the government, necessarily destroys that central and 
 
 * Sir J. Yorke.
 
 WAR WITH SPAIN. 347 
 
 tutelary authority which constitutes the essence of the monarchical 
 system." Thus far the King of Prussia, in terms which, lo say the 
 least, afforded some proof of the writer's knowledge of the monarchi- 
 cal system, and of the contrast which, in his opinion, it exhibited to 
 the present government of Spain. The Emperor of Russia, in terms 
 not less strong, calls the constitutional government of the Cortes, " that 
 which the public reason of Europe, enlightened by the experience of 
 all ages, stamps with its disapprobation;" and complains of its want- 
 ing the " conservative principle of social order." Where, in the con- 
 servative character of keeper of the peace of Europe, does his Imperial 
 Majesty discover that the constitution of Spain 'had been stamped 
 with the disapprobation of the public reason of Europe? Let the 
 House observe, that the " public reason of Europe, enlightened by the 
 experience of all ages," happens to be that of his Imperial Majesty 
 himself for the last ten years exactly, and no more; for, notwithstand- 
 ing that he had the " experience of all ages" before his eyes he did, in 
 the year 1812, enter into a treaty with Spain, with the same Cortes, 
 under the same constitution, not one iota of which had been changed 
 up to that very hour. In that treaty, his Imperial Majesty the Empe- 
 ror of all the Rnssias, speaking of the then government, did use the 
 very word by which he and his allies would themselves be designated 
 the word, by the abuse of which they are known he did call the 
 Spanish government of the Cortes "a legitimate government," that 
 very government that very constitution of which the Spaniards 
 have not changed one word; and God forbid they should change even 
 a letter of it, while they have the bayonet of the foreign soldier at 
 their breast! I hope, if it has faults and some faults it may have 
 that when 'he hour of undisturbed tranquillity arrives, the Spaniards 
 themselves will correct them. If they will listen to the ardent wish 
 of their best friends of those who have marked their progress, and 
 gloried in the strides they have made towards freedom and happiness 
 of those who would go to the world's end to serve them in their 
 illustrious struggle of those, above all, who would not have them 
 yield an hair's breadth to force my counsel would be to disarm the 
 reasonable objections of their friends, but not to give up anything to 
 the menaces of their enemies. I shall not go more into detail at the 
 present moment; for ample opportunities will occur of discussing this 
 subject; but I will ask, in the name of common sense, can anything 
 be more absurd, more inconsistent, than that Spain should now be 
 repudiated as illegitimate by those, some of whom have, in treaties 
 with her, described her government in its present shape, by the very 
 term, "legitimate government?" In the treaty of friendship and alli- 
 ance, concluded in 1812, between the Emperor of all the Russia and 
 the Spanish Cortes, Ferdinand being then a close prisoner in France, 
 his Imperial Majesty, by the third article, acknowledges in express 
 terms, the Cortes, " and the CONSTITUTION sanctioned and decreed by 
 it." This article I cite from the collection of Treaties by Martens, a 
 well known Germanic, and therefore a laborious and accurate com- 
 piler.
 
 348 HOLY ALLIANCE. 
 
 But not only is the conduct of the allies towards Spain inconsistent 
 with the treaties of some among them with Spain I will show that 
 their principle of interference, in any manner of way, is wholly at va- 
 riance with treaties recently made amongst themselves. I will prove, 
 that one of the fundamental principles of a late treaty is decidedly op- 
 posed to any discussion whatever amongst them, respecting the inter- 
 nal situation of that country. By (he 4th article of the Treaty of Aix- 
 la-Chapelle, November 1818, it is laid down, that a special congress 
 may be held, from time to time, on the affairs of Europe. Using the 
 words, and borrowing the hypocritical cant of their predecessors, 
 the same three powers who basely partitioned Poland who, while 
 they despoiled a helpless nation of its independence, kept preaching 
 about the quiet of Europe, the integrity of its states, and the morality 
 and happiness of their people talking daily about the desire of calm 
 repose, the atmosphere, I well know, in which despotism loves to 
 breathe, but which an ancient writer eloquently painted, when he said, 
 that tyrants mistake for peace the stillness of desolation following 
 the vile cant of their ancestors the allies declared, at Aix-la-Chapelle, 
 that their object was to secure the tranquillity, the peace, which I, 
 giving them credit for sincerity, read the desolation, of Europe, and 
 that their fundamental principle should be, never to depart from a 
 strict adherence to the law of nations. " Faithful to these principles," 
 (continued this half-sermon, half-romance, and half-state-paper) "they 
 will only study the happiness of their people, the progress of the 
 peaceful arts, and attend carefully to the interests of morality and re- 
 ligion, of late years unhappily too much neglected" here, again, fol- 
 lowing the example of the Autocratrix Catherine the spoiler of Po- 
 land who, having wasted and pillaged it, province after province, 
 poured in hordes of her barbarians, which hewed their way to the 
 capital through myriads of Poles, and there, for one whole day, from 
 the rising of the sun, to the going down thereof, butchered its unof- 
 fending inhabitants, unarmed men, and women, and infants; and not 
 content with this work of undistinguishing slaughter, after the pause 
 of the night had given time for cooling, rose on the morrow, and re- 
 newed the carnage, and continued it throughout that endless day; 
 and after this, a Te Deum was sung, to return thanks for her success 
 over the enemies, that is, the natives, of Poland. That mild and 
 gentle sovereign, in the midst of these most horrible outrages upon 
 every feeling of human nature, issued a proclamation, in which she 
 assured the Poles, (1 mean to give her very words) that she felt to- 
 wards them, "the solicitude of a tender mother, whose heart is only 
 filled with sentiments of kindness for all her children." Who can, or 
 who dares doubt that she was all she described herself; and who can, 
 after the experience of the last year, dispute the legitimate descent of 
 the allied powers, and the purity of their intentions towards Spain? 
 But along with this declaration of the object of future congresses, 
 came the article which I should like to see some German statist some 
 man versed in the manufacture of state-papers compare with, and 
 reconcile (if it only may be done within a moderate compass) to the
 
 WAR WITH SPAIN. 349 
 
 notes fashioned at Verona, not unlikely by the very hands which pro- 
 duced the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. The article is this: "Special 
 congresses concerning the affairs of states not parties to this alliance, 
 shall not take place, except" (and here I should like to know how 
 Spain, which was no party to the alliance, has brought herself within 
 the exception) "except in consequence of a formal invitation from 
 such states;" "and their ambassadors shall assist at such congresses." 
 How will any German commentator reconcile these contradictions? 
 Here the interference in the internal affairs of Spain is not only not 
 " by special invitation" from, but is in downright opposition to, the 
 will of Spain. Thus stands the conduct of those Holy Allies diamet- 
 rically opposed to their own professions and engagements, and by 
 such means is the attempt now made to crush the independence of a 
 brave people. 
 
 But it is not in the case of Spain alone that the consideration of 
 these papers is important they furnish grounds of rational fear to all 
 independent governments; for I should be glad to learn what case it 
 is (upon the doctrines now advanced) to which this principle of inter- 
 ference may not be extended? or what constitution or what act of 
 state it is on which the authority to comment, criticise, and dictate, 
 may not be assumed? The House is not aware of the latitude to 
 which the interference of those armed legislators may be, nay actually 
 is, extended. The revolt of the colonies is distinctly stated as one 
 ground of interposition! The allies kindly offer their " intervention" 
 to restore this great branch of" the strength of Spain." There is no 
 end of the occasions for interfering which they take. One is rather 
 alarming the accident of a sovereign having weak or bad ministers. 
 Russia, forsooth, was anxious to see Ferdinand surrounded with "the 
 most enlightened most faithful of his subjects" men "of tried in- 
 tegrity and superior talents" men, in a word, who should be every 
 way worthy of himself. So that, according to these wise men of V T e- 
 rona, (and this is a consideration which should he looked to in some 
 other countries, as well as Spain,) the existence of an inefficient or un- 
 principled administration, would be of itself a just ground of interfe- 
 rence. The principle does not stop here. " Ruinous loans" form 
 another ground, and "contributions unceasingly renewed;" "taxes 
 which, for year alter year, exhausted the public treasures and the 
 fortunes of individuals" these are instances, in which the principle 
 of interference may apply to other powers beside Spain; ami I have 
 no doubt that when tin: same doctrines are extended to certain coun- 
 tries, the preparatory manifesto will make mention of agricultural dis- 
 tress, financial embarrassment, and the sinking fund. But, to complete; 
 all the charges against Spain, the Russian Emperor finishes, his invec- 
 tive with the awful assertion, that, on the 7th of July, "blood was 
 seen to How in the palace of the King, and a civil war raged through- 
 out the Peninsula." It is true that a revolt had been excited in soino 
 of the provinces. But by whom? An ally. It was produced by 
 those cordons of troops, which were posted on the Spanish frontier, 
 armed with gold and with steel, and affording shelter and assi 
 VOL. i. JO
 
 350 HOLY ALLIANCE. 
 
 by force, to those in whose minds disaffection had been excited by 
 bribery. It is also true that blood has been shed. But would it not 
 be supposed, by any person unacquainted with the fact, and who only 
 read the statement in the manifesto, that this was blood shed in an 
 attempt to dethrone Ferdinand, and introduce some new and unheard 
 of form of government? At any rate, does not this statement plainly 
 intend it to be supposed, that the constitutional party had made the 
 onset, and shed royalist, if not royal blood? But what is the fact? 
 A few persons were killed who had first attacked the constitutional- 
 ists, in other words, mutinied against the established government the 
 government which the Emperor Alexander himself recognized as 
 legitimate in 1812; and this he has now the audacity to call the shed- 
 ding of blood by Spaniards in the palace of the king! As well might 
 he accuse the People, the Parliament, and the Crown of England, of 
 causing " blood to flow in the palace of the king," for ordering their 
 sentinels to fire on some person whom they found attempting to assas- 
 sinate the sovereign, as accuse the Spaniards of such a crime, for the 
 events which happened in July 1822. 
 
 I shall pass over many other heavy charges levelled at the Spaniards, 
 in phrases of terrible import as harbouring a "disorganized philoso- 
 phy," "indulging in dreams of fallacious liberty," and the want 
 of " venerable and sacred rights," with which the Prussian note is 
 loaded to repletion: and shall proceed to the Russian, which objects 
 to the Spaniards their want of the " true conservative principle of 
 social order" or, in other words, of despotic power, in the hands of 
 one man, for his own benefit, at the expense of all mankind besides; 
 and to their not falling within the scope of those "grand truths," 
 which, though they were ever in their mouths, were nowhere ex- 
 plained by any one of the three sovereigns. The Austrian note dis- 
 courses largely of "the solid and venerable claims" which the Spanish 
 nation has upon the rest of Europe: prays it to adopt a better form of 
 government than it has at present; and calls upon it to reject a system 
 which is at once "powerful and paralyzed." It would be disgusting 
 to enter at any length into papers, at once so despicable in their exe- 
 cution, and in their plan so abominably iniquitous. There is but one 
 sentiment held regarding them out of the House; and my excuse for 
 taking notice of them now, is my desire to call forth a similar expres- 
 sion of feeling from the House itself. Monstrous, and insolent, and 
 utterly unbearable, as all of them are, I consider that of Russia to be 
 more monstrous, more insolent, and more prodigiously beyond all en- 
 durance, than the rest. It is difficult to determine which most to ad 
 mire the marvellous incongruity of her language and conduct now, 
 with her former most solemn treaties or the incredible presumption 
 of her standing forward to lead the aggression upon the independence 
 of all free and polished states. Gracious God! Russia! Russia! 
 a power that is only half civilized which, with all her colossal mass 
 of physical strength, is still quite as much Asiatic as European 
 whose principles of policy, foreign and domestic, are completely des- 
 potic, and whose practices are almost altogether oriental and barba-
 
 WAR WITH SPAIN. 351 
 
 rous! In all these precious documents, there is, with a mighty num- 
 ber of general remarks, mixed up a wondrous affectation of honest 
 principles a great many words covering ideas that are not altogether 
 clear and intelligible; or, if they happen to be so, only placing Jheir 
 own deformity in a more hideous and detestable light: but, for argu- 
 ment, or anything like it, there is none to be found from the begin- 
 ning to the end of them. They reason not, but speak one plain lan- 
 guage to Spain and to Europe, and this is its sum and substance: 
 " We have hundreds of thousands of hired mercenaries, and we will 
 not stoop to reason with those whom we would insult and enslave." 
 I admire the equal frankness with which this haughty language had 
 been met by the Spanish government: the papers which it had sent 
 forth are plain and laconic; and borrowing for liberty, the ancient 
 privilege of tyrants to let their will stand in the place of argument 
 they bluntly speak this language; "we are millions of freemen, 
 and will not stoop to reason with those who threaten to enslave us." 
 They hurl back the menace upon the head from which it issued, little 
 caring whether it came from Goth, or Hun, or Calmuck; with a frank- 
 ness that outwitted the craft of the Bohemian, and a spirit that defied 
 the ferocity of the Tartar, and a firmness that mocks the obstinacy of 
 the Vandal. If they find leagued against them the tyrants by whom 
 the world is infested, they may console themselves with this reflection, 
 that wherever there is an Englishman, either of the old world or of 
 the new wherever there is a Frenchman, with the miserable excep- 
 tion of that little band which now, for a moment, sways the desti- 
 nies of France in opposition to the wishes and interests of its gallant 
 and liberal people a people which, after enduring the miseries of the 
 Revolution, and wading through its long and bloody wars, are entitled, 
 Heaven knows, if ever any people were, to a long enjoyment of peace 
 and liberty, so dearly and so honourably purchased wherever there 
 breathes an Englishman or a true-born Frenchman wherever there 
 beats a free heart or exists a virtuous mind, there Spain has a natural 
 ally, and an inalienable friend. For my own part, I cannot but ad- 
 mire the mixture of firmness and forbearance which the government 
 of Spain has exhibited. When the Allied Monarchs were pleased to 
 adopt a system of interference with the internal policy of Spain 
 when they thought fit to deal in minute and paltry criticisms upon 
 the whole course of its domestic administration when each sentence 
 in their manifestoes was a direct personal insult to the government, nay 
 to every individual Spaniard and when the most glaring attempts 
 were made in all their state papers to excite rebellion in the country, 
 and to stir up one class of the community against the other it would 
 not have surprised me, if, in the replies of the Spanish government 
 some allusion had been made to the domestic policy of the Allied 
 Sovereigns; or if some of the allegations which had been so lavishly 
 cast upon it, had been scornfully retorted upon those who had so falsely 
 and so insolently called them forth. What could have been more 
 pardonable, nay, what more natural, than for the Spanish govern- 
 ment to have besought his Prussian Majesty, who was so extremely
 
 352 HOLY ALLIANCE. 
 
 anxious for the welfare and good government of Spain who had 
 shown himself so minute, a critic on its laws and institutions, and who 
 seemed so well versed in its recent history to remember the promises 
 which he made some years ago to his own people, by whose gallant 
 exertions, on the faith of those promises, he had regained his lost 
 crown? What would have been more natural than to have suggested, 
 that it would be better, ay, and safer too in the end, to keep those 
 promises, than to maintain, at his people's cost, and almost to their 
 ruin, a prodigious army, only safely employed when in the act of 
 ravaging the territories, or putting down the liberties, of his neigh- 
 bours? The government of Spain would have had a right to make 
 such representations, for his Prussian Majesty owed much, very much, 
 to its exertions; indeed, the gallant resistance which it made to the 
 invasion of Buonaparte had alone enabled Prussia to shake off the 
 yoke; while, on the other hand, the Spaniards owed a debt of grati- 
 tude to the brave and honest people of Prussia for beginning the resist- 
 ance to Buonaparte in the north. Could any thing, I will also ask, 
 have been more natural for the Spanish government, than to have 
 asked the Emperor of Austria, whether he who now pretended to be 
 so scrupulously fond of strict justice in Ferdinand's case, when it cost 
 him nothing, or must prove a gain, had always acted with equal jus- 
 tice towards others, when he was himself concerned? Could anything 
 have been more natural, than suggesting to him, that before he was 
 generous to King Ferdinand, he might as well be just to King George; 
 that he had better not rob the one to pay the other nay, that he ought 
 to return him the whole, or at any rate, some part of the millions, 
 principal and interest, which he owed him? a debt which, remaining 
 unpaid, wastes the resources of a faithful ally of Spain, and tends 
 mightily to cripple his exertions in her behalf. I wish likewise to 
 know what could have been more natural nay, if the doctrine of 
 interference in the internal concerns of neighbouring nations be at all 
 admitted what could have been more rightful, in a free people, than 
 to have asked him how it happened that his dungeons were filled 
 with all that was noble, and accomplished, and virtuous, and patriotic 
 in the Milanese? to have called on him to account for the innocent 
 blood which he had shed in the north of Italy? to have required at 
 his hands satisfaction for the tortures inflicted in the vaults and caverns 
 where the flower of his Italian subjects were now languishing? to 
 have demanded of him some explanation of that iron policy which 
 has consigned fathers of families, the most virtuous and exalted in 
 Europe, not to the relief of exile or death, but to a merciless imprison- 
 ment for ten, fifteen, and twenty years, nay, even for life, without a 
 knowledge of the charge against them, or the crime for which they are 
 punished? Even the Emperor Alexander himself, tender and sensitive 
 as he is at the sight of blood flowing within the precincts of a royal 
 palace, a sight so monstrous, that if his language could be credited, 
 it had never before been seen in the history of the world, might have 
 been reminded of passages in that history, calculated to lessen his 
 astonishment at least, if not to soothe his feelings; for the Emperor
 
 WAR WITH SPAIN. 353 
 
 Alexander, if the annals of Russian story may be trusted, however 
 pure in himself, and however happy in always having agents equally 
 innocent, is nevertheless descended from an illustrious line of ances- 
 tors, who have, with exemplary uniformity, dethroned, imprisoned, 
 and slaughtered, husbands, brothers, and children. Not that I can 
 dream of imputing those enormities to the parents, or sisters, or con- 
 sorts; but it does happen that those exalted and near relations had 
 never failed to reap the whole benefit of the atrocities, and had ever 
 failed to bring the perpetrators to justice. In these circumstances, if 
 I had had the honour of being in the confidence of his Majesty of all 
 the Russias, I should have been the last person in the world to counsel 
 my Imperial Master to touch upon so tender a topic I should humbly 
 have besought him to think twice or thrice, nay, even a third and a 
 fourth time, before he ventured to allude to so delicate a subject I 
 should, with all imaginable deference, have requested him to meddle 
 with any other topic I should have directed him by preference to 
 every other point of the compass I should have implored him rather 
 to try what he could say about Turkey, or Greece, or even Minorca, 
 on which he has of late been casting many an amorous glance in 
 short, anything and everything, before he approached the subject of 
 " blood flowing within the precincts of a royal palace," and placed his 
 allusion to it like an artful rhetorician, upon the uppermost step of 
 his climax. I find, likewise, in these self-same documents, a topic 
 for which the Spanish government, had it been so inclined, might 
 have administered to the Holy Alliance another severe lecture; I allude 
 to the glib manner in which the three Potentates now talk of an indi- 
 vidual, who, let his failings or even his crimes be what they may, 
 must always be regarded as a great and a resplendent character 
 who, because he was now no longer either upon a throne or at liberty, 
 or even in life, is described by them, not merely as an ambitious ruler, 
 not merely as an arbitrary tyrant, but as an upstart and an usurper. 
 This is not the language which those Potentates formerly employed, 
 nor is it the language which they were now entitled to use regarding 
 this astonishing individual. Whatever epithets England, for instance, 
 or Spain, may have a right to apply to his conduct, the mouths of the 
 allies at least are stopped: they can have no right to call him usurper 
 they who, in Ins usurpations, had been either most greedy accom- 
 plices or most willing tools. What entitles the King of Prussia to 
 hold such language now? he who followed his fortunes with the 
 most shameless subserviency, after the thorough beating he received 
 from him, when trampled upon and trodden down in the year 1SOG? 
 Before he had risen again and recovered the upright attitude of a man, 
 he fell upon his knees, and still crouching before him who had made 
 him crawl in the dust, kissed the blood-stained hand of Napoleon for 
 leave to keep his Britannic Majesty's foreign dominions, the Electo- 
 rate of Hanover, which the Prussian had snatched hold of while at 
 peace with England. So the Emperor Alexander, after he had also 
 undergone the like previous ceremony, did not disdain to lick up the 
 crumbs which foil from the table of his more successful rival in usur- 
 
 30*
 
 354 HOLT ALLIANCE. 
 
 pation. Little, it is true, was left by the edge of Gallic appetite; but 
 rather than have nothing rather than desert the true Russian princi- 
 ple of getting something on every occasion, either in Europe or in 
 Asia, (and of late years they haveeven laid claim to an almost indefinite 
 naval dominion in America) rather than forego the Calmnck policy 
 for the last century and a half, of always adding something, be it ever 
 so little, to what was already acquired, be it ever so great he con- 
 descended to receive from the hand of Buonaparte a few square 
 leagues of territory, with an additional population of some two or 
 three thousand serfs. The object was trifling indeed, but it served 
 to keep alive the principle. The tender heart of the father, over- 
 flowing, as his imperial grandmother had phrased it, with the milk of 
 human kindness for all his children, could not be satisfied without 
 receiving a further addition to their numbers; and therefore it is not 
 surprising, that on the next ocasion he should be ready to seize, in 
 more effectual exemplification of the principle, a share of the booty, 
 large in proportion as his former one had been small. The Emperor 
 of Austria, too, who had entered before the others into the raee for 
 plunder, and never weary in ill-doing, had continued in it till the very 
 end he who, if not an accomplice with the Jacobins of France in the 
 spoliation of Venice, was at least a receiver of the stolen property a 
 felony, of which it was well said at the time in the House, that the 
 receiver was as bad as the thief that magnanimous Prince, who, 
 after twenty years alternation of truckling and vapouring now the 
 feeble enemy of Buonaparte, now his willing accomplice constantly 
 punished for his resistance, by the discipline invariably applied to 
 those mighty Princes in the tenderest places, their capitals, from which 
 they were successively driven as constantly, after punishment, join- 
 ing the persecutor, like the rest of them, in attacking and plundering 
 his allies ended, by craving the honour of giving Buonaparte his 
 favourite daughter in marriage. Nay, after the genius of Buonaparte 
 had fallen under the still more powerful restlessness of his ambition 
 when the star of his destiny had waned, and the fortune of the 
 Allies was triumphant, through the roused energies of their gallant 
 people, the severity of the elements, his own turbulent passions and 
 that without which the storms of popular ferment, and Russian winter, 
 and his own ambition, would have raged in vain, the aid of English 
 arms, and skill, and gallantry strange to tell, these very men were 
 the first to imitate that policy against which they had inveighed and 
 struggled, and to carry it farther than the enemy himself in all its most 
 detestable points. I maintain that it is so; for not even by his bitter- 
 est slanderers was Buonaparte ever accused of actions so atrocious as 
 was the spoliation of Norway, the partition of Saxony, the transfer of 
 Genoa, and the cession of Ragusa, perpetrated by those in whose 
 mouths no sound had been heard for years but that of lamentation 
 over the French attacks upon national independence. It is too much, 
 after such deeds as these it is too much, after the Allies had sub- 
 mitted to a long course of crouching before Buonaparte, accompanied 
 by every aggravation of disgrace it is too much for them now to
 
 WAR WITH SPAIN. 355 
 
 come forth, and calumniate his memory for transactions, in the benefits 
 of which they participated at the time, as his accomplices, and the 
 infamy of which they have since surpassed with the usual exaggera- 
 tion of imitators. I rejoice that the Spaniards have only such men 
 as these to contend with. I know that there are fearful odds when 
 battalions are arrayed against principles. I may feel solicitous about 
 the issue of such a contest. But it is some consolation to reflect, that 
 those embodied hosts are not aided by the merits of their chiefs, and 
 that all the weight of character is happily on one side. It gives me, 
 however, some pain to find that a monarch so enlightened as the King 
 of France has shown himself on various occasions, should have yielded 
 obedience, even for an instant, to the arbitrary mandates of this ty- 
 rannic junto. I trust that it will only prove a temporary aberration 
 from the sounder principles on which he has hitherto acted: I hope 
 that the men who appear to have gained his confidence only to abuse 
 it, will soon be dismissed from his councils; or if not, that the voice of 
 the country, whose interests they are sacrificing to- rheir wretched 
 personal views, and whose rising liberties they seem anxious to 
 destroy, in gratification of their hatred and bigotry, will compel them 
 to pursue a more manly and more liberal policy. Indeed, the King of 
 France has been persuaded by the parasites who at present surround 
 him, to go even beyond the principles of the Holy Alliance. He has 
 been induced to tell the world, that it is from the hands of a tyrant 
 alone that a free people can hold a constitution. That accomplished 
 Prince and all Europe acknowledges him to be, amongst other things 
 a finished scholar, cannot but be aware that the wise and good men 
 of former times held far other opinions upon this subject; and if I 
 venture to remind him of a passage in a recently recovered work of 
 the greatest philosopher of the ancient world, ii is in the sincere hope 
 thai his Majesty will consider it with all ihe attention that is due to 
 such hi^h authority. That great man said, " Xon in ulla civitate, nisi 
 in qua suniina potestas populi cst, ullmn domicilium libertas habet." 
 I recommend to his Most Christian Majesty the reflection, that this 
 lesson came not only from the wisdom of so great a philosopher, but 
 also from the experience of so great a statesman. I would have him 
 remember that, like himself, he lived in times of great dilliculty and 
 of great danger that he had to contend with the most formidable con- 
 spiracy to which the life, property, and liberty of the citizen had ever 
 been exposed that, to defeat it, he had recourse only to the powers 
 of the constitution threw himself on tin; good will of his patriotic 
 countrymen and only put forth the powers of his own genius, and 
 only used the wholesome vigour of the law. He never thought of 
 calling to his assistance the Allobroges, or the Teutones, or the Scy- 
 thians of his day; and I now say, that if Louis XVIII shall call upon 
 the modern Tentones or Scythians to assist him in this unholy war, 
 the day their hordes move towards the Rhine, judgment will go forth 
 against him, and his family, and his councillors; and the dynasty of 
 Gaul has ceased to reign. 
 
 What, I ask, are the grounds on which the necessity of this war
 
 356 HOLY ALLIANCE. 
 
 is defended? It is said to be undertaken because an insurrection has 
 broken out with success at Madrid. I deny this to be the fact. 
 What is called an insurrection, was an attempt to restore the law- 
 ful constitution of the country a constitution which was its estab- 
 lished government, till Ferdinand overthrew it by means of a mu- 
 tiny in the army; and therefore, when a military movement enabled 
 the friends of liberty to recover what they had lost, it is a gross per- 
 version of language to call this recovery, this restoration, by the 
 name of insurrection, an insidious confusion of terms, which can 
 only be intended to blind the reason, or play upon the prejudices, of 
 the honest part of mankind. Let the pretext, however, for the war, 
 be what it may, the real cause of it is not hard to conjecture. It is 
 not from hatred to Spain or to Portugal that the Allied Sovereigns 
 are for marching their swarms of barbarians into the Peninsula it 
 is not against freedom on the Ebro, or freedom on the Miucio, they 
 make war. No, it is against freedom! against freedom wherever 
 it is to be found freedom by whomsoever enjoyed freedom by 
 whatever means achieved, by whatever institutions secured. Free- 
 dom is the object of their implacable hate. For its destruction, they 
 are ready to exhaust every resource of force and fraud. All the 
 blessings which it bestows, all the establishments in which it is em- 
 bodied, the monuments that are raised to it, and the miracles that are 
 wrought by it, they hate with the malignity of demons, who trem- 
 ble while they are compelled to adore; for they quiver by instinct at 
 the sound of its name. And let us not deceive ourselves; these des- 
 pots can have but little liking toward this nation and its institutions, 
 more especially our Parliament and our Press. As long as England 
 remains unenslaved; as long as the Parliament continues a free and 
 open tribunal, to which the oppressed of all nations under heaven 
 can appeal against their oppressors, however mighty and exalted 
 and with all its abuses, (and no man can lament them more than I do, 
 because no man is more sensible of its intrinsic value, which those 
 abuses diminish), with all its imperfections, (and no man can be more 
 anxious to remove them, because none wishes more heartily, by re- 
 storing its original purity, to make it entirely worthy of the country's 
 love), it is still far too pure and too free to please the taste of the 
 continental despots so long would England be the object of their 
 hatred, and of machinations, sometimes carried on covertly, some- 
 times openly, but always pursued with the same unremitting activity, 
 and pointed to the same end. But it is not free states alone that 
 have to dread this system of interference; this plan of marching armies 
 to improve the political condition of foreign nations. It is idle to 
 suppose that those armed critics will confine their objections to the 
 internal policy of popular governments. Can any one imagine, that, 
 if there be a portion of territory in the neighbourhood of the Emperor 
 Alexander peculiarly suited to his views, he will not soon be able to 
 discover some fault, to spy out some flaw in its political institutions 
 requiring his intervention, however little these may savour of demo- 
 cracy, supposing it even to be a part of the Ottoman government itself?
 
 WAR WITH SPAIN. 357 
 
 If his Imperial Majesty be present in council with his consistory of 
 jurists and diplomatists, I believe that it will be in vain for the Ule- 
 niah to send a deputation of learned Muftis, for the purpose of vindi- 
 cating the Turkish institutions. These sages of the law may contend 
 that the Ottoman government is of the most "venerable description" 
 that it has "antiquity in its favour" that it is in full possession of 
 "the conservative principle of social order'' in its purest form that 
 it is replete with "grand truths;" a system " powerful and para- 
 lyzed" that it has never lent an ear to the doctrines of a " disor- 
 ganized philosophy" never indulged in "vain theories," nor been 
 visited by such things as "dreams of fallacious liberty." All this the 
 learned and reverend deputies of the Ulemah may urge, and may 
 maintain to be true as holy Koran: still "The Three Gentlemen of 
 Verona," I fear, will turn a deaf ear to the argument, and set about 
 prying for some imperfection in the " pure and venerable system" 
 some avenue by which to enter the territory; and, if they cannot find 
 a way, will probably not be very scrupulous about making one. The 
 windings of the path may be hard to trace, but the result of the opera- 
 tion will be plain enough. In about three months from the time of 
 deliberation, the Emperor Alexander will be found one morning at 
 Constantinople or if it suit him, at Minorca for he has long shown 
 a desire to have some footing, in what he pleasantly termed the 
 "western provinces" of Europe, which, in the Muscovite tongue, sig- 
 nifies the petty territories of France and Spain, while Austria and 
 Prussia will be invited to look for an indemnity elsewhere; the latter, 
 as formerly, taking whatever the King of England may have on the 
 Continent. The principles on which this band of confederated despots 
 have shown their readiness to act, are dangerous in the extreme, not 
 only to free states, (and to those to which no liberty can be imputed), 
 but also to the states over which the very members of this unholy 
 league preside. Resistance to them is a matter of duty to all nations, 
 and the duty of this country is especially plain. It behoves us, how- 
 ever, to take care that we rush not blindly into a war. An appeal 
 to arms is the last alternative we should try, but still it ought never 
 to be so foreign to our thoughts as to be deemed very distant, much 
 less impossible; or so foreign from our councils as to leave us unpre- 
 pared. Already, if there is any force in language, or any validity in 
 public engagements, we are committed by the defensive treaties into 
 which we have entered. We are bound by various ties to prevent 
 Portugal from being overrun by an enemy. If (which Heaven avert!) 
 Spain were overrun by foreign invaders, what would be the situation 
 of Portugal? Her frontier on the side of Spain can scarcely be said 
 to have an existence; there is no defending it anywhere; and it is in 
 many places a mere imaginary line, that can only be traced on the 
 page of the geographer; her real frontier is in the Pyrenees; her real 
 defence is in their fastnesses and in the defence of Spain; whenever 
 those passes are crossed, the danger which has reached Spain will 
 hang over Portugal. If we acknowledge the force of treaties, and 
 really mean that to be performed for which we engaged, though we
 
 358 HOLY ALLIANCE. 
 
 may not be bound to send an army of observation to watch the mo- 
 tions of the French by land, because that would be far from the surest 
 way of providing for the integrity of our ally, at least we are bound 
 to send a naval armament; to aid with arms and stores; to have at all 
 times the earliest information; and to be ready at any moment to give 
 effectual assistance to our ancient ally. Above all things, we ought 
 to do that which of itself will be a powerful British armament by sea 
 and by land repeal without delay the Foreign Enlistment Bill a 
 measure which, in my opinion, we ought never to have enacted, for 
 it does little credit to us either in policy or justice. I will not, how- 
 ever, look backward to measures on the nature of which all may not 
 agree; I will much rather look forward, to avoid every matter of vitu- 
 peration, reserving all blame for the foreign tyrants whose profligate 
 conduct makes this nation hate them with one heart and soul, and 
 my co-operation for any faithful servant of the Crown, who shall, in 
 performing his duty to his country, to freedom, and to the world, 
 speak a language that is truly British pursue a policy that is truly 
 free and look to free states as our best and most natural allies against 
 all enemies whatsoever; allies upon principle, but whose friendship 
 was also closely connected with our highest interests; quarrelling 
 with none, whatever may be the form of their government, for that 
 would be copying the faults we condemn; keeping peace wherever 
 we could, but not leaving ourselves a moment unprepared for war; 
 not courting hostilities from any quarter, but not fearing the issue, 
 and calmly resolved to brave it at all hazards, should it involve us in 
 the affray with them all; determined to maintain, amid every sacri- 
 fice, the honour and dignity of the Crown, the independence of the 
 country, the ancient law of nations, the supremacy of all separate 
 states; all those principles which are cherished as most precious and 
 most sacred by the whole civilized world,
 
 OX THE 
 
 SLAVE TRADE AND SLAVERY 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 MR. WILBERFORCE MR. GRANVILLE SHARP MR. CLARKSON. 
 
 THE history of the Slave Trade is too fresh in the recollections of men, to require 
 any full details in this place. As soon as South America began to be explored by 
 the Spaniards and Portuguese, it was found that the speculations of their insatiable 
 avarice, which the plunder and torture of the natives had only for the moment 
 appeased, could not be permanently carried on without a supply of hands to work 
 the mines, and to cultivate in the islands, the rich produce of tropical climates. 
 The Indians, a feeble race, unused to toil, were soon exceedingly reduced in num- 
 bers; and the practice was instituted of bringing over Negroes from the coast of 
 Africa. The shortness of the distance between that continent and the Brazils first 
 suggested this traffic to the Portuguese, who had settlements on the African coast; 
 but it was not followed to any great extent, or in a regular manner. The specu- 
 lators of New Spain, however, soon felt the want of hands to work their mines 
 and cultivate their lands; and Bartolomeo de las Casas, a friar of the Dominican 
 order, who had charitably devoted his life to the protection of the unhappy Indians, 
 treated like cattle, only that they were more inhumanly used by their cruel and 
 profligate taskmasters, now joined in the scheme, if he did not first suggest it, of 
 supplying their place with African Negroes. He never reflected, says the his- 
 torian, "upon the iniquity of reducing one race of men to slavery, while consult- 
 ing about the means of granting liberty to another; but, with the inconsistency 
 natural to men who hurry with headlong impetuosity towards a favourite point, in 
 the warmth of his zeal to save the Americans from the yoke, pronounced it lawful 
 and expedient to impose one much heavier upon the Africans."* Charles V 
 granted a patent for introducing four thousand Negroes yearly into Spanish Ame- 
 rica, and thus was begun that horrible traffic which immediately began to ravage 
 Africa, and ended in exposing the American continent to the utmost peril, while it 
 brought eternal disgrace upon the Christian profession and the European name. 
 
 After this scourge had been suffered to desolate Africa, and to disgrace mankind 
 for two centuries and a half, the attention of men was at length directed to it by 
 some eminent philanthropists of this country. Among these, a high place must 
 be assigned to (Jranville Sharp, than whom a purer spirit never resided in the 
 human form. With a perseverance which is only not unexampled because it set an 
 example afterwards followed by other labourers in the same cause; with a bene- 
 volence which was quite universal, and made the aspect of human suffering so 
 painful to him, that he would suffer any privation to lessen it; with a piety which, 
 
 * Robertson's America.
 
 360 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 though it rose to an enthusiasm that oftentimes warped his otherwise clear and 
 sound judgment, was yet wholly unattended with any the least vestige of harsh- 
 ness or intolerance; he pursued, in privacy and seclusion, the paths of charity 
 which lead to no fame among men, which conduct to that peace the world cannot 
 give, and which would have enabled him to hide a multitude of transgressions, if 
 Granville Sharp had had any transgressions to hide. But he was not a mere tole- 
 rant follower of religion, and anxious dispenser of secret benevolence, high and 
 rare as these attributes are. He was one of the most learned men of his time, and 
 could maintain the parts of lettered controversy, classical and theological, with 
 the most accomplished scholars in the church. The wholesale violation of all 
 human rights, and flagrant wreck of all Christian duties, with which the Slave 
 Trade and West Indian slavery had so long outraged and insulted the world, early 
 attracted his regard; and he persevered in trying the legal question, at first held 
 to be desperate How far a slave coming to this country under the power of his 
 master, continues subject to that authority, or gains his personal liberty in com- 
 mon with the other subjects of the realm. Although not bred to the legal pro- 
 fession, he devoted himself to the study of the law, for the purpose of prosecuting 
 this contention; he enlightened lawyers with the result of his researches; he 
 overpowered opposition by the force and the closeness of his reasonings; he dis- 
 armed all personal opposition by the unruffled serenity of his temper, the unequalled 
 suavity of his simple yet frank and honest manners; he gave his fortune, as well 
 as his toil, to the cause; and he ceased not until he obtained the celebrated judg- 
 ment of the King's Bench, so honourable to the law and constitution of this coun- 
 try, that a slave cannot touch our soil, but immediately his chains fall away. This 
 is that famous case of Somerset the Negro,* which has for ever fixed the great 
 principle of personal liberty, by promoting which Granville Sharp did more than 
 had ever before been done towards bringing slavery into an odious conflict with 
 the spirit of British jurisprudence. He stopped not here, however, but continued 
 a zealous and useful coadjutor through the long period of his after life, in all that 
 related to the extinction of the African trafBc, and the slavery of the colonies. 
 
 He was soon after followed in his bright cpurse by Thomas Clarkson, of whom 
 it has been justly said, nor can higher praise be earned by man, that to the great 
 and good qualities of Las Casas his benevolence his unwearied perseverance 
 his inflexible determination of purpose piety which would honour a saint cou- 
 rage which would accomplish a martyr he added the sound judgment and strict 
 sense of justice which were wanting in the otherwise perfect character of the 
 
 * This case is very fully and learnedly argued in Mr. Margrave's Juridical Tracts, 
 where a very expanded statement of his argument in the Court of King's Bench is given. 
 Tlie question came on by the Negro body applying, in the year 1771, for a writ of Habeas 
 Corpus, which Lord Mansfield, who issued it, desired might be argued in court on the 
 return being made. Mr. Wallace, Mr. Alleyne, and Mr. ILirgrave argued for the slave's 
 freedom, Mr. Dunning and Sergeant Davy against it. The court, utter taking time to 
 consider, gave judgment for the slave in 177:2. Lord Mansfield said of slavery, in con- 
 cluding his judgment, "Slavery is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it 
 but positive law, and it is not allowed or approved by the law of England." 
 
 The same question had arisen in Scotland, some years before, in the case of Shcddan, 
 a Negro. During the argument before the Court of Session, (a hearing in presence, as it 
 is there termed,) he died, and the point was left undecided until the year 1778, when the 
 court determined, in favour of the slaves, in the case of Wedderburn v. Knight, as the 
 Court of King's Bench had done in Somerset's case. 
 
 In France, the same question arose in 1731, and the argument is given at large in the 
 Causfs Celebris. The advocates all dwelt with much complacency upon the topic, so 
 familiar to us in this country, that the moment a slave touches French ground he is free, 
 slavery being utterly repugnant to their law, and the air of France being too pure to be 
 breathed but by freemen; and it seems to have been admitted that the Negro's freedom 
 was secured to him at common law; but an edict of 1716 had provided that in certain 
 cases, as for religious instruction, teaching them useful arts, &c., a slave, under very 
 minute and careful regulations, might be brought to France from the colonies, and not 
 acquire his freedom; and the question appears to have been determined in the slave's 
 favour on the ground of these conditions not having been complied with.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 361 
 
 Spanish philanthropist, While pursuing his studies at Cambridge, he made the 
 Slave Trade the subject of an essay, which gained one of the university prizes, 
 and this accident having called his especial attention to the iniquity of that exe- 
 crable commerce, he devoted his life to waging an implacable hostility with it. 
 The evidence which he collected and brought before a committee formed to obtain 
 its abolition, drew the attention of Mr. Wilberforce, and secured at once the ser- 
 vices of that great man as the leader in the cause. 
 
 Few persons have ever either reached a higher and more enviable place in the 
 esteem of their fellow creatures, or have better deserved the place they had gained, 
 than William Wilberforce. He was naturally a person of great quickness and 
 even subtilty of mind, willr a lively imagination, approaching to playfulness of 
 fancy; and hence he had wit in an unmeasured abundance, and in all its varieties; 
 for he was endowed with an exquisite sense of the ludicrous in character, the foun- 
 dation of humour, as well as the perception of remote resemblances, the essence 
 of wit. These qualities, however, he had so far disciplined his faculties as to keep 
 in habitual restraint, lest he should ever offend against strict decorum, by intro- 
 ducing light matter into serious discussion, or be betrayed into personal remarks too 
 poignant for the feelings of individuals. For his nature was mild and amiable be- 
 yond that of most men; fearful of giving the least pain in any quarter, even while 
 heated with the zeal of controversy on questions that roused all his passions; and 
 more anxious, if it were possible, to gain over rather than to overpower an adver- 
 sary; disarming him by kindness, or the force of reason, or awakening appeals to 
 his feelings, rather than defeating him by hostile attack. His natural talents were 
 cultivated, and his taste refined by all the resources of a complete Cambridge edu- 
 cation, in which, while the classics were sedulously studied, the mathematics were 
 not neglected; and he enjoyed in the society of his intimate friends, Mr. Pitt and 
 Dean Milner, the additional benefit of foreign travel, having passed nearly a year 
 in France, after the dissolution of Lord Shelburne's administration had removed 
 Mr. Pitt from office. Having entered Parliament as member for Hull, where his 
 family were the principal commercial men of the place, he soon afterwards, upon 
 the ill-fated coalition destroying all confidence in the Whig party, succeeded Mr. 
 Foljambe as member for Yorkshire, which he continued to represent as long as his 
 health permitted him, having only retired to a less laborious seat in the year 1812. 
 Although generally attached to the Pitt ministry, he pursued his course wholly un- 
 fettered by party connection, steadily refused all office through his whole life, nor 
 would he lay himself under any obligations by accepting a share of patronage; and 
 he differed with his illustrious friend upon the two most critical emergencies of his 
 life, the question of peace with France in 1795, and the impeachment of Lord Mel- 
 ville ten years later. 
 
 His eloquence was of the highest order. It was persuasive and pathetic in an 
 eminent degree; but it was occasionally bold and impassioned, animated with the 
 inspiration which deep feeling alone can breathe into spoken thought, chastened by 
 a pure taste, varied by extensive information, enriched by classical allusion, some- 
 times elevated by the more sublime topics of holy writ the thoughts 
 
 " Tliut wrapt Isaiah's hallowed soul in fire." 
 
 Few passages can he cited in the oratory of modern times of a more electrical 
 effect than the singularly felicitous and striking allusion to Mr. Pitt's resisting 
 the torrent of Jacobin principles: " He stood between the living and the dead, and 
 the plague was staid." The singular kindness, the extreme gentleness of his dis- 
 position, wholly free from gall, from vanity or any selfish feeling, kept him from 
 indulging in any of the vituperative branches of rhetoric; but a memorable instance 
 showed that it was anything rather than the want of force which held him off 
 from the use of the weapons so often in almost all other men's hands. When 
 a well known popular member thought fit to designate him repeatedly, and very 
 irregularly, as the " Honourable and religious gentleman" not because he was 
 ashamed of the cross he gloried in, but because he felt indignant at any one in the Uri- 
 tish senate deeming piety a matter of imputation, he poured out a strain of sarcasm 
 which none who heard it can ever forget. A common friend of the parties having
 
 362 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 remarked to Sir Samuel Romilly beside whom he sat, that this greatly outmatched 
 Pitt himself, the great master of sarcasm, the reply of that great man, and just ob- 
 server, was worthy to be remarked " Yes," said he, " it is the most sinking- thinor 
 I almost ever heard; but I look upon it as a more singular proof of Wilberforce's 
 virtue than of his genius, for who but he ever was possessed of such a formidable 
 weapon, and never used it]" Against all these accomplishments of a finished ora- 
 tor there was little to set on the other side. A feeble constitution, which made him 
 say, all his life, that he never was either well or ill; a voice sweetly musical be- 
 yond that of most men, and of great compass also, but sometimes degenerating into 
 a whine;* a figure exceedingly undignified and ungraceful, though the features of 
 the face were singularly expressive; and a want of condensation, in the latter years 
 of his life especially, lapsing into digression, and ill calculated for a very business- 
 like audience like the House of Commons; may be noted as the only drawbacks 
 which kept him out of the very first place among the first speakers of his age, 
 whom, in pathos, and also in graceful and easy and perfectly elegant diction, as 
 well as harmonious periods, he unquestionably excelled. The influence which the 
 member for Yorkshire always commanded in the old Parliament the great weight 
 which the head, indeed, the founder, of a powerful religious sect, possessed in the 
 country would have given extraordinary authority in the senate to one of far infe- 
 rior personal endowments. But when these partly accidental circumstances were 
 added to his powers, and when the whole were used and applied with the habits of 
 industry which naturally belonged to one of his extreme temperance in every re- 
 spect, it is difficult to imagine any one bringing a greater force to any cause which 
 he might espouse. 
 
 Wherefore, when he stood forward as the leader of the abolition, vowed impla- 
 cable war against Slavery and the Slave trade, and consecrated his life to the ac- 
 complishment of its destruction, there was every advantage conferred upon this 
 great cause, and the rather that he held himself aloof from all party connection. A 
 few personal friends, united with him by similarity of religious opinions, might be 
 said to form a small party, and they generally acted in concert, especially in all 
 matters relating to ihe Slave question. Of these, Henry Thornton was the most 
 eminent in every respect. He was a man of strong understanding, great powers of 
 reasoning and of investigation, an accurate and a curious observer, but who nei- 
 ther had cultivated oratory at all, nor had received a refined education, nor had ex- 
 tended his reading beyond the subjects connected with moral, political, and theolo- 
 gical learning. The trade of a banker, which he followed, engrossed much of his 
 time; and his exertions, both in parliament and through the press, were cheifly con- 
 fined to the celebrated controversy upon the currency, in which his well known 
 work led the way, and to a bill for restricting the Slave Trade to part of the African 
 coast, which he introduced when the abolitionists were wearied out with their re- 
 peated failures, and had well-nigh abandoned all hopes of carrying the great mea- 
 sure itself. That measure was fated to undergo much vexatious delay, nor is there 
 any great question of justice and policy, the history of which is less creditable to the 
 British Parliament, or, indeed, to some of the statesmen of this country, although, 
 upon it mainly rests the fame of others. 
 
 When Mr. Wilberforce, following in Mr. Clarkson's track, had with matchless 
 powers of eloquence, sustained by a body of the clearest evidence, unveiled all 
 the horrors of a traffic, which, had it been attended with neither fraud nor cruelty of 
 any kind, was, confessedly, from beginning to end, not a commerce, but a crime, 
 he was defeated by large majorities, year after year. When at length, for the first 
 time, in 1801, he carried the Abolition Bill through the Commons, the Lords im- 
 mediately threw it out; and the next year it was again lost in the Commons. All 
 this happened while the opinion of the country was, with the single exception of 
 persons having West India connections, unanimous in favour of the measure. At 
 
 * Habebat enim flcbilc qniddam in qutcstibus aptumque cum ad fidum f.iciendam tuin 
 ad misericordiarn cornmovendam: ut vcrum videretur in hoc illud quod Dcmosthcnem fc- 
 runt ei qui quaesivisset quid primuin cssct in diccndo aclioncm, quid sccundum idem, et 
 idem tertium respondisse. Nulla res magis penetrat in animos, cosqnc fingii, format ct 
 flectit, talesque oratores vidcri facit, quales ipsi se videri volunt. (CICERO, Brutus,}
 
 INTRODUCTION. 363 
 
 different times there was the strongest and most general expression of public 
 feeling upon the subject, and it was a question upon which no two men endowed 
 with reason, could possibly differ, because, admitting whatever could be alleged 
 about the profits of the traffic, it was not denied that their gain proceeded from 
 pillage or murder. Add to all this, that the enormous evil continued to disgrace 
 the country and its legislature for twenty years, although the voice of every states- 
 man of any eminence, Mr. Windham alone excepted, was strenuously lifted against 
 it although, upon this very question, Pitt, Fox, and Burke, heartily agreed 
 although by far the finest of all Mr. Pitt's speeches were those which he pro- 
 nounced against it and although every press and every pulpit in the island 
 habitually cried it down. How are we, then, to account for the extreme tenacity 
 of life which the hateful reptile showed? How to explain the fact that all those 
 powerful hands fell paralyzed, and could not bring it to death] If little honour 
 redounds to the Parliament from this passage in our history, and if it is thus 
 plainly shown that the unreformed House of Commons but ill represented the 
 country; it must also be confessed that Mr. Pitt's conduct gains as little glory from 
 the retrospect. How could he who never suffered any of his coadjutors, much less 
 his underlings in office, to thwart his will even in trivial matters he who would 
 have cleared any of the departments of half their occupants, had they presumed 
 to have an opinion of their own upon a single item of any budget, or an article in 
 the year's estimates how could he, after shaking the walls of the senate with 
 the thunders of his majestic eloquence, exerted with a zeal which set at defiance 
 all suspicions of his entire sincerity, quietly suffer, that the object, just before 
 declared the dearest to his heart, should be ravished from him when within his 
 sight, nay within his reach, by the votes of the secretaries and under-secretaries, 
 the puisne lords and the other fry of mere placemen the pawns of his boards'? It 
 is a question often anxiously put by the friends of the abolition, never satisfactorily 
 answered by those of the minister; and if any additional comment were wanting' 
 on the darkest passage of his life, it is supplied by the ease with which he cut off 
 the slave traffic of the conquered colonies, an importation of thirty thousand yearly, 
 which he had so long suffered to exist, though an order in council could any day 
 have extinguished it. This he never thought of till 1805, and then, of course, the 
 instant he chose, he destroyed it forever with a stroke of his pen. Again, when 
 the Whigs were in power, they found the total abolition of the traffic so easy, that 
 the measure in pursuing which Mr. Pitt had for so many long years allowed him- 
 self to be baffled, was carried by them with only sixteen dissentient voices in a 
 House of 250 members. There can then, unhappily, be but one answer to the 
 question regarding Mr. Pitt's conduct on this great measure. He was, no doubt, 
 quite sincere, but he was not so zealous as to risk anything, to sacrifice anything, 
 or even to give himself any extraordinary trouble for the accomplishment of his 
 purpose. The court was decidedly against abolition; George III always regarded 
 the question with abhorrence, as savouring of innovation and innovation in a 
 part of his empire, connected with his earliest and most rooted prejudices the 
 colonies. The courtiers took as is their wont, the colour of their sentiments from 
 him. The peers were of the same opinion. Mr. Pitt had not the enthusiasm for 
 right and justice, to risk in their behalf the friendship of the mammon of unrighte- 
 ousness, and he left to his rivals, when they became his successors, the glory of 
 that sacred triumph in the cause of humanity, which should have illustrated his 
 name, who in its defence, had raised all the strains of his eloquence to their very 
 highest pitch. 
 
 Notwithstanding the act of 1807 had made the slave trade illegal after the 1st 
 of January 180H, by whomsoever carried on in the British dominions, and by 
 British subjects wheresoever carried on; yet, as forfeitures and penalties of a pecu- 
 niary kind were the only consequences of violating the law, the temptations of 
 high profit induced many, both capitalists and adventurers, to defy the prohibitions 
 of the statute, and the clearest proofs were soon furnished of British subjects 
 being employed in the slave trade under tho most flimsy disguises. It becmno 
 necessary at length to treat this traffic as a crime, and no longer to deal with tlio 
 criminals nn smugglers only, who have broken some provisions of the revenue lu\v. 
 Mr. Brougham taking this view of the subject, broached it in the House of Com-
 
 364 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 mons on 14th June 1810, in the following speech; and following up the resolu- 
 tions and address, then adopted unanimously by the Commons, he next session 
 brought in and carried without a dissenting voice, through both Houses of Par- 
 liament, the bill declaring slave-trading a felony, and punishing it with fourteen 
 years transportation or imprisonment for five years. In 1824, this punishment 
 was deemed insufficient; the offence was made capital, and so continued until the 
 acts for mitigating the rigour of the criminal law in 1837, made slave-trading punish- 
 able with transportation for life. There is every reason to think that no British 
 subjects are now or have for many years been directly engaged in this execrable 
 traffic, with the exception of those belonging to the Mauritius. In that island it is 
 certain, that with the connivance, if not under the direct encouragement of the higher 
 authorities of the colony, slave-trading to an enormous extent, was for some years 
 openly carried on. A colonial Secretary of State admitted that above 25,000 Negroes 
 had been brought over from the African coast, in other words, 25,000 capital felo- 
 nies committed under the eye, if not with the encouragement of the government. 
 It is an unenviable reflection which is left to us, that for all those human beings, 
 illegally held in bondage, and in not one of whom could there by law be any 
 kind of property claimed, full compensation, at the rate of 53 each, has been 
 allowed by the commissioners, and paid by the people of this country and that 
 besides this sum of at least a million and a half being so squandered upon the vile 
 and sordid wrong-doers, those felons and accomplices of felons are still suffered to 
 claim the labour of the Africans, under the name of indentured apprentices. With 
 the flagrant exception of the Mauritius, there is no reason to believe that any British 
 subjects have, since the felony act of 1811 came into operation, been directly con- 
 cerned in the traffic; but there is too much reason to suspect that British capital has 
 pretty freely found its way into that corrupt channel.
 
 SPEECH 
 
 o.v 
 
 THE SLAVE TRADE 
 
 JUNE 14, 1810. 
 
 SIR, I rise, pursuant to notice, to call the attention of the House to 
 the state of the Slave Trade, a subject of the first importance; and, 
 although it is neither a personal question, nor a party one; although 
 its discussion involves neither the pursuit nor the defence of place; 
 although, indeed, it touches matters of no higher concernment than the 
 honour of the House and the country, and the interests of humanity 
 at large; I trust that it will, nevertheless, receive the same favourable 
 consideration which it has so often experienced upon former occasions. 
 The question I propose to submit to the House is, Whether any, and 
 what measures can be adopted, in order to watch over the execution 
 of the sentence of condemnationtwhich Parliament has, with a singular 
 unanimity, pronounced upon the African Slave Trade? It is now four 
 years since Mr. Fox made his last motion in this house, and, I believe, 
 his last speech here, in favour of the abolition. He then proposed a 
 resolution, pledging the House to the abolition of the traffic, and moved 
 an address to the crown, beseeching his Majesty to use all his endea- 
 vours for obtaining the concurrence of other powers in the pursuit of 
 this great object. An address to the same effect was voted by the 
 other House, with equal unanimity; and, early in the next year, two 
 noble friends of mine,* who were second only to my honourable 
 friend,t prevented by indisposition from attending this day, in their 
 services to the cause, and will yield not even to him in their zeal for 
 its success, gave the Parliament an opportunity of redeeming its 
 pledge, by introducing the Abolition Bills in the two Houses. That 
 measure, which had formerly met so many obstacles, whether, as some 
 are willing to believe, from the slowness with which truth works its 
 way, or, as others were prone to suspect, from the want of zeal in its 
 official supporters, now experienced none of the impediments that had 
 
 * Lords Grenvillc and Grev. t Mr. Wilbcrforce. 
 
 31*
 
 366 THE SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 hitherto retarded its progress. Far from encountering any formidable 
 difficulties, it passed through Parliament almost without opposition; 
 and one of the greatest and most disputed of measures, was at length 
 carried by larger majorities, perhaps, than were ever known to divide 
 upon any contested question. The friends of the abolition, however, 
 never expected that any legislative measure would at once destroy the 
 Slave Trade: they were aware how obstinately such a trade would 
 cling to the soil where it had taken root; they anticipated the difficul- 
 ties of extirpating a traffic which had entwined itself with so many 
 interests, prejudices, and passions. But I must admit, that although 
 they had foreseen, they had considerably underrated, those difficulties. 
 They had not made sufficient allowance for the resistance which the 
 real interests of those directly engaged in the trade, and the supposed 
 interests of the colonists, would oppose to the execution of the acts; 
 they had underrated the wickedness of the Slave Trader, and the infa- 
 tuation of the planter. While on the one hand it appears, from the 
 documents I formerly moved for, that nothing has been done to cir- 
 cumscribe the foreign Slave Trade, it is now found, that this abomi- 
 nable commerce has not completely ceased, even in this country! I 
 hope the House will favour me with its attention, while, from the 
 papers on the table, and from such other information as I have been 
 enabled to obtain, I lay before it a statement, which will, in some 
 measure, enable it to appreciate the extent of the evil, and to apply 
 the proper remedies. 
 
 I shall now proceed to call the attention of the House to the state of 
 the Slave Trade in foreign countries. In these it exists variously. In 
 America it is contraband, as in England, having been prohibited by 
 law, but it is still carried on, illegally, for the supply of the American 
 as well as of foreign plantations: while, in the colonies of Portugal 
 and Spain, it is still sanctioned by tlje laws, and even receives pecu- 
 liar encouragement from the government. The extent of the Spanish 
 Slave Trade I cannot state very accurately, but, from returns at the 
 custom-house at Cadiz, to which I have had access, and from the well- 
 known increase of the sugar culture in Cuba, the importation of 
 Negroes appear to be very great. The average annual importation 
 into that island, during thirteen years, from 17S9 to 1803, was 5S40; 
 and it is evidently upon the increase, for the average of the last four 
 years of the period was 8600; the total number imported during the 
 period exceeded 76.000 slaves. This statement, among other things, 
 proves how much the American flag is used in covering the foreign 
 Slave Trade; for, after the commencement of hostilities between Spain 
 and this country, the trade could only have been carried on to a very 
 limited extent in Spanish bottoms; and yet, instead of being checked 
 by the war, it has greatly increased since 1795. The culture of sugar 
 has likewise increased at Porto Rico, and on the Main, and with it, of 
 course, the importation of slaves. The precise amount of this I cannot 
 speak to; but I have every reason to suppose it very inconsiderable, 
 when compared with the traffic in Cuba. The annual importation of 
 Mexico does not exceed 100 Negroes, and that of the settlements on
 
 THE SLAVE TRADE. 367 
 
 the South Sea is only 500. The other colonies obtain their supplies 
 principally through the Brazils. 
 
 With regard to the Portuguese Slave Trade, I cannot speak with 
 more precision. During my residence at Lisbon, in the king's ser- 
 vice, I had oth'cial communication with the Portuguese minister, and 
 also with a person of high rank, who had been governor of the 
 northern provinces of Brazil, and was then going out as governor of 
 Angola and Benguela, upon the African coast. It appeared from the 
 returns of a capitation-tax on Negroes exported from Africa, (which 
 gentlemen will perceive must give the lowest amount of the exporta- 
 tion,) that there were annually sent to the Brazils, from that part of 
 Africa alone, above 15,000 Negroes; and this was reckoned only one- 
 half of the total number exported from all parts of the Portuguese 
 settlements. From another quarter, of high authority, I learned that 
 this, if estimated at 30,000, would not be overrated. But the branch of 
 the trade which it is the most important to attend to at present, is that 
 carried on by American vessels, in open violation of the laws of the 
 United States. I firmly believe, as I have before stated when the 
 matter was questioned by the right honourable gentleman opposite,* 
 that the American government has all along acted in regard to the 
 Slave Trade, with the most perfect sincerity and good faith. They 
 had, indeed, set us the example of abolishing it. All the states, except 
 two, Georgia and South Carolina, had early abolished it by acts of 
 their separate legislatures, before the period arrived when the consti- 
 tution gave Congress a right to pass such a law for the whole Union; 
 and, as soon as that period arrived, viz. at the beginning of the year 
 1S08, the traffic was finally prohibited by an act of Congress. But it 
 is one thing to pass a law, and another to carry it into execution, as 
 we have ourselves found on this side of the water, I am sorry to think; 
 and, although the American legislature and the government have 
 done all that lies in their power, it requires much greater naval means 
 than they possess to suppress effectually their contraband Slave 
 Trade. They may, in a great measure, by their police, prevent the 
 importation of Negroes into the United States; nnd this they have 
 done: but the bulk of their contraband Slave Trade is carried on 
 between Africa and the islands, or Africa and South America; and, to 
 check this, a very different navy is wanted from any that the Ameri- 
 cans (happily for this country, in every point of view, except the one 
 now in question,) are likely, fora long series of years, to possess. By 
 such a contraband trade, the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, and not 
 only they, but our own settlements, are supplied with slaves: and in 
 this manner it is that the foreign Slave Trade interferes with our own 
 abolition. 
 
 What I intend to propose is, that the executive government shall 
 be exhorted to take such further steps as may be conducive to the 
 object of the joint address of both branches of the legislature. Unless 
 the American flag can, by some means or other, be excluded from its 
 
 * Mr. Canning.
 
 368 THE SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 large share in this abominable commerce; and unless the Spanish and 
 Portuguese governments can be brought to some concurrent arrange- 
 ment; the trade must still be carried on to an enormous extent; and 
 it is in vain to talk even of abolishing it entirely in our own colonies. 
 Our largest island is within a day's, I should rather say, a night's sail, 
 of the largest slave colony of Spain. Our other old colonies lie in the 
 very track both of the Spanish and American slave-ships. When the 
 vast plantations of Trinidad and Guiana are in such want of Negroes 
 to clear their waste lands, and are situated almost within sight of the 
 Spanish slave market, where the law still sanctions that infernal traffic, 
 how can it be expected that the British abolition should be effectual? 
 A gentleman of the profession to which 1 have the honour of belong- 
 ing, having lately returned from Berbice, informs me of the manner in 
 which our planters carry on this contraband intercourse. The Oroonoko 
 falls into the sea between Trinidad and Guiana. The Spanish slave- 
 ships take their station near its mouth, and our planters send large 
 boats along the coast to the station of the ships, from whence they are 
 supplied with cargoes of sixty or seventy Negroes by trans-shipment at 
 sea, and these cargoes they land on their return, in the various creeks 
 of the settlements, so as to elude the utmost vigilance of the colonial 
 officers. Does not this single fact evince the necessity of forming some 
 arrangement with the Spanish government, while the friendly rela- 
 tions between the two governments subsist? The great obstacle which 
 I always find opposed to such a proposition is, What can we do? 
 Those nations, it is pretended, are wedded to their own prejudices; 
 they have views of their own, arid we cannot interfere. Of this argu- 
 ment, I entertain very great suspicion, and for one plain reason, that 
 it is on the single subject of the abolition that I ever hear it used; it is 
 here alone that any want of activity is ever observed in our govern- 
 ment, or that we ever hear of our want of influence in the councils of 
 our neighbours. On all other measures, some of suspicious, some of 
 doubtful policy in matters indifferent, or repugnant to humanity we 
 are ready enough to intrigue, to fight, to pay. It is only when the 
 interests of humanity are concerned, and ends the most justifiable, as 
 well as expedient, are in view, that we not only all at once lose our 
 activity and influence, but become quite forward in protesting that we 
 have no power to interfere. From one end of Europe to the other 
 our weight is felt, and in general it is no very popular thing to call it 
 in question. At all times we are ready enough to use it, as well as to 
 magnify it; but on this one occasion we become both weak and diffi- 
 dent, and while we refuse to act, must needs make a boast of our 
 impotency. Why, we never failed at all when the object was to 
 obtain new colonies, and extend the Slave Trade! Then we could 
 both conquer and treat; we had force enough to seize whole provinces 
 where the Slave Trade might be planted, and skill enough to retain 
 them by negotiation, in order to retain with them the additional com- 
 merce in slaves, which their cultivation required. It is natural, there- 
 fore, for me to view with some suspicion our uniform failure, when 
 the object is to abolish or limit this same Slave Trade. I suspect it may
 
 THE SLAVE TRADE. 369 
 
 arise from there being some similarity between our exertions in the 
 cause and those of some of its official advocates in this House; that we 
 have been very sincere, no doubt, but rather cold without a particle 
 of ill-will towards the abolition, but without one spark of zeal in its 
 favour. 
 
 I shall now answer the question of, " What can we do to stop the 
 foreign Slave Trade?" by putting another question; and I would ask, 
 " How have we contrived to promote the Slave Trade when that was 
 our object?" I would only desire one tenth part of the influence to be 
 exerted in favour of the abolition, which we have with such fatal 
 success exerted in augmenting the slave traffic; when, by our cam- 
 paigns and our treaties, we acquired the dominion of boundless and 
 desert regions, and then laid waste the villages and the fields of 
 Africa, that our new forests might be cleared. 
 
 But if I be asked to what objects our influence should be directed, 
 I have no hesitation in pointing them out: And, first, I should say, the 
 Spanish and Portuguese governments. Happily, in those quarters 
 where most is to be attempted, our influence is the greatest at the pre- 
 sent moment; for both countries we have done much, and having 
 lavished our blood and our treasure in defending them from cruelty, 
 injustice, and every form of ordinary oppression, it is certainly not 
 asking too much to require that they should give over a course of 
 iniquity towards nations as innocent as they, and infinitely more 
 injured by them. Everything favours some arrangement with Spain, 
 on this point. The only Spanish colonies where the sugar cane is 
 extensively cultivated are the islands, and of these principally Cuba. 
 To that settlement the bulk of the Slave Trade is confined. On the 
 main land there is little demand for slaves; about 1400 are annually 
 sent to Buenos Ayres, 500 to Peru and Chili, and only 100 to Mexico, 
 while Cuba receives 8,600 a-year. This then is the only Spanish 
 colony which can suffer materially; and it is reasonable to expect that 
 the Spanish government would not refuse this inconsiderable sacri- 
 fice. At any rate some arrangement might be made both with Por- 
 tugal and Spain, to prevent their flags from being used for the purposes 
 of the foreign Slave Trade. 
 
 Adverting next to the means which we have of inducing the 
 American government to make some arrangement, I admit that our 
 influence in that quarter is not so powerful; but I would throw out 
 one or two remarks for the consideration of ministers. First, an at- 
 tempt ought to be made to supply the deficiency of naval resources 
 in America, by lending the assistance of our own; and I should sug- 
 gest the necessity of the two governments coming to some understand- 
 ing, that the cruisers of each may capture the contraband slave ships 
 of the other country. From communications which I have held with 
 persons of high rank in the service of the United States, I have reason 
 to think, that such an arrangement would not be greatly objected to 
 in America. An opening for a proposal of this nature is certainly 
 afforded by the correspondence which has taken place between Mr. 
 Erskine and the American government relative to the orders in coun-
 
 370 THE SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 cil, and non-intercourse laws; for an assurance is there given, that if 
 a British cruiser capture an American found acting contrary to the 
 American municipal law, the government of the United States will 
 never notice the capture; and though there is an objection to recog- 
 nising by treaty the non-intercourse law, it by no means follows, that 
 a similar recognition could not be obtained in the present instance. 
 The right thus given must no doubt be mutual, but so is every right 
 which this country claims under the law of nations; and it should be 
 remembered, that the two parties are very differently affected by it; 
 for while the Americans could scarcely search or detain half a dozen 
 of our slave vessels in a year, we should be enabled to stop hundreds 
 of theirs. The advantage of such an arrangement to our own plant- 
 ers would also be great; for if rival foreigners carry on the Slave 
 Trade, while it is prohibited in our settlements, our planters are, for 
 a certain time at least, liable to be undersold in the sugar market, and 
 subjected to a temporary pressure. Another circumstance with regard 
 to American ships, I throw out for the consideration of merchants and 
 cruisers. It appears to me, that even without any such arrangement 
 between the two governments, the expeiiment of capturing American 
 slave ships might safely be made. I have every reason to believe, 
 that no reclamation whatever would be made by the American go- 
 vernment if such vessels were detained, however great their numbers 
 might be. A claim might no doubt be entered by individual owners, 
 when the vessels were brought in for condemnation, and the courts of 
 prize have been in the practice of saying, that they cannot take notice 
 of the municipal laws of other countries. But, beside the great risk 
 to which American owners expose themselves by making such claims, 
 (the risk of the penalties which they thereby prove themselves to have 
 incurred under the Abolition Acts of America), it is to be observed, 
 that the courts require a proof of property in the claimants; and I 
 wish to see whether courts sitting and judging by the law of nations 
 are prepared to admit of a property in human iflesh.* I wish to know 
 
 * This opinion has since been fully confirmed by the decision of the Lords of 
 Prize Appeal in the case of the Amedie, as appears by the following- Report of the 
 Judgment of the Lords Commissioners of Prize Appeals, at the Privy Council, Sa- 
 turday, July 28, 1810. 
 
 Case of the Amedie; James Johnson, master. This was a vessel under Ameri- 
 can colours, with slaves from Africa, captured in December, 1807, in the West In- 
 dies, and carried into Tortola. The claimant pretended that she was bound to 
 Charleston, South Carolina, where the importation of slaves continued to be law- 
 ful to the end of that year; but that, having been detained on the coast, and there 
 being no prospect of reaching Charleston before the 1st of January 1808, the 
 period appointed for the cessation of the Slave Trade in every part of the United 
 States, by a law of the General Congress, the master of necessity bore away for 
 the island of Cuba, there to wait directions from his owners. It was contended, 
 on the other hand, by the captor, that this statement was a mere pretence, and that, 
 in truth, the original plan of the voyage was a destination to Cuba, which was un- 
 lawful under the American laws, long previous to their general abolition of the 
 Slave Trade. Admitting, however, the case to be so, it was strenuously contended 
 for the claimant, that a British court of prize had no right to take any cognizance 
 of American municipal law, and that, as no belligerent right of this country had
 
 THE SLAVE TRADE. 371 
 
 in what part of that law any such principle is recognized. I desire to 
 be informed where the decision or where the dictum is, which allows 
 a person to bring forward a claim in a court of the law of nations, for 
 the bodies of humnu beings forcibly and fraudulently obtained, or at 
 all events carried away from their homes against their will, and by 
 violence confirmed, and compelled to labour and suffer? What I am 
 anxious to see is, how such a claim can be stated with common de- 
 cency in such courts: I have no great fears as to the reception it 
 would meet with: it is repugnant to the whole law of nature, and 
 any knowledge of the law of nations which I possess affords me no 
 authority for it. I earnestly hope some persons connected with priva- 
 teers and cruisers may soon try the question. They could run no risk, 
 I venture to assert on my own authority, and still more confidently on 
 
 been violated, tlie property ought to be restored to the neutral owner. A series of 
 precedents seemed to support this doctrine. The ship was condemned at Tortola, 
 and the enslaved Africans were, according to the Abolition act, restored to their 
 freedom; but the claimant appealed, and the liberty of the Africans, as well as the 
 property of the ship, depended on the issue of this appeal. The case was solemnly 
 argued in March last, and as, in the opinion of the court, it turned on the new ques- 
 tion of the effect of the American and British Abolition Acts on this species of con- 
 traband commerce, when brought before a court of prize, the case, on account of 
 its importance, has since stood over for judgment. Several other cases of American 
 slave ships have also stood over, as depending on the same general question. The 
 judgment of the court was delivered hy Sir William Grant, the Master of the Rolls, 
 nearly in the following terms: " This ship must be considered as being employed, 
 at the time of capture, in carrying slaves from the coast of Africa to a Spanish 
 colony. We think that this was evidently the original plan and purpose of the 
 voyage, notwithstanding the pretence set up to veil the true intention. The claim- 
 ant, however, who is an American, complains of ihe capture, and demands from us the 
 restitution of property, of which he alleges that he has been unjustly dispossessed. 
 In all the former cases of this kind, which have come before this court, the Slave 
 Trade was liable to considerations very diflVrent from those which belong to it now. 
 It had at that time been prohibited (as far as respected carrying slaves to the colo- 
 nies of foreign nations) by America, but by our own laws it was still allowed. It 
 appeared to us, therefore, difficult to consider the prohibitory law of America in any 
 other light than as one of those municipal regulations of a foreign state, of which 
 this court could not take any cognizance. Hut by the alteration which has since 
 taken place the question stands on different grounds, and is open to the application 
 of very different principles. The Slave Trade has since been totally abolished in 
 this country, and our legislature has pronounced it to be contrary to the principles 
 of justice and humanity. Whatever we might think as individuals before, we 
 could not, sitting as judges in a British court of justice, regard the trade in that 
 light, while our own laws permitted it. Hut we can now assert, that this trade 
 cannot, abstractedly speaking, have a legitimate existence. When I say abstractedly 
 speaking, I mean this country has no right to control any foreign legislature that 
 may think fit to dissent from this doctrine, and to permit to its own subjects the 
 prosecution of this trade; but we have now a right, to affirm, that prima facie tin; 
 trade is illegal, and thus to throw on claimants the burden of proof that in respect 
 of them, by the authority of their own laws, it is otherwise. As the case now 
 stands, wo think wo are entitled to say, that a claimant can have no right, upon 
 principles of universal law, to claim the restitution in a prize court, of human beings 
 carried as his slaves. He must show some right that has been violated by the cap- 
 ture, some property of which ho has been dispossessed, and to which he ought to he 
 restored. In this case, the laws of the claimant's country allow of no ri^lit of pro- 
 perty of such as lie claims. There can therefore- be no right to rcMituti<'ti. Tim 
 consequence is, that the judgment must be affirmed."
 
 372 THE SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 that of professional friends who frequent the prize courts, that no risk 
 whatever of being condemned in costs could possibly be incurred, 
 even if the vessels were restored. Without running any risk, much 
 good may thus be done; and I should feel satisfied that I have more 
 than announced the ends I had in view when I began this discussion, 
 if I could persuade myself that what I now say may lead any one to 
 make this important trial. 
 
 Having hitherto only spoken of the foreign Slave Trade, it is with 
 great mortification that I now feel myself obliged to call the attention 
 of the House to the evasions of the Abolition Acts in this country. 
 For accomplishing this detestable purpose, all the various expedients 
 have been adopted which the perverse ingenuity of unprincipled ava- 
 rice can suggest. Vessels are fitted out at Liverpool, as if for inno- 
 cent commerce with Africa. The ships, and even the cargoes, are, 
 for the most part, the same as those used in the trade of gold-dust, 
 grains, and ivory. The goods peculiarly used in the Slave Trade are 
 carefully concealed, so as to elude the reach of the port officers. The 
 platforms and bulk-heads which distinguish slave ships are not fitted 
 and fixed until the vessel gets to sea, and clears the channel, when the 
 carpenters set to work and adapt her for the reception of slaves. For 
 better concealment, some of the sailors, and not unfrequently, the 
 master himself, are Portuguese. But it is remarkable, that, lurking 
 in some dark corner of the ship, is almost always to be found a hoary 
 slave trader an experienced captain, who, having been trained up 
 in the slave business from his early years, now accompanies the ves- 
 sel as a kind of supercargo, and helps her, by his wiles, both to escape 
 detection, and to push her iniquitous adventures. This is not a fan- 
 ciful description. I hold in my hand the record of a court of justice, 
 which throws so much light on the subject, that I moved, on a former 
 night, to have it laid on the table. It appears from thence, that, but 
 a few months ago, in the very river which washes the walls of this 
 house, not two miles from the spot where we now sit, persons daring 
 to call themselves English merchants have been detected in the act of 
 fitting out a vessel of great bulk for the purpose of tearing seven or 
 eight hundred wretched beings from Africa, and carrying them through 
 the unspeakable horrors of the middle passage to endless bondage and 
 misery, and toil which knows no limits, nor is broken by any rest, in 
 the sands and swamps of Brazil. This detection has been made by 
 the zeal and knowledge of a much loved and respected friend of mine,* 
 who was only enabled to pursue so difficult an investigation by that 
 perfect acquaintance with the subject, which lie has acquired by his 
 residence in Africa as governor of Sierra Leone, and by having even 
 submitted to the pain of a slave voyage for the purpose of better learn- 
 ing the nature of the traffic. 
 
 I shall here read several extracts from the record of condemnation 
 of the Comercio de Rio, in the Court of Exchequer last Hilary term. 
 It appears, that besides an enormous stock of provisions, water-casks, 
 
 * Mr. Z. Macaulay.
 
 THE SLAVE TRADE. 373 
 
 mess-kits, &c. there were found on board fifty-five dozen of padlocks, 
 ninety-three pair of hand-cuffs, a hundred and ninety-seven iron 
 shackles for the feet, thirteen hundred weight three quarters of iron 
 chains, one box of religious implements, and, that the bodily as well 
 as the spiritual health of this human cargo might not be neglected, 
 the slave merchants, out of their rare humanity which one must 
 really have known a good deal of the sort of character, easily to be- 
 lieve allowed, for the medical wants of eight hundred negroes, of all 
 ages, crammed into a loathsome cage, and carried through new and 
 perilous climates during a voyage of weeks, or even months one 
 little medicine chest, value 5. This is not the only instance of the 
 kind, nor even the latest one, I grieve to say, recent though it be. I 
 mentioned on a former night, that at one port of this country, six ves- 
 sels have only just been fitted out, by a similar course of base fraud, 
 for the same trade, or rather let me call it, the same series of detest- 
 able crimes. 
 
 It is now three years since that abominable traffic has ceased to be 
 sanctioned by the law of the land; and, I thank God, I may therefore 
 now indulge in expressing feelings towards it, which delicacy rather 
 to the law than the traffic, might, before that period, have rendered it 
 proper to suppress. After a long and most unaccountable silence of 
 the law on this head, which seemed to protect, by permitting, or at 
 least by not prohibiting the traffic, it has now spoken out, and the 
 veil which it has appeared to interpose being now withdrawn, it is fit 
 to let our indignation fall on those who still dare to trade in human 
 flesh, not merely for the frauds of common smugglers, but for en- 
 gaging in crimes of the deepest dye; in crimes always most iniquitous, 
 even when not illegal; but which now are as contrary to law as they 
 have ever been to honesty and justice. I must protest loudly against 
 the abuse of language, which allows such men to call themselves 
 traders or merchants. It is not commerce, but crime, that they are 
 driving. I too well know, and too highly respect, that most honour- 
 able and useful pursuit, that commerce whose province it is to human- 
 ize and pacify the world so alien in its nature to violence and fraud 
 so formed to flourish in peace and in honesty so inseparably con- 
 nected with freedom, and good will, and fair dealing, I deem too 
 highly of it to endure that its name should, by a strange perversion, 
 be prostituted to the use of men who live by treachery, rapine, tor- 
 ture, and murder, and are habitually practising the worst of crimes for 
 the basest of purposes. When I say murder, I speak literally and 
 advisedly. I mean to use no figurative phrase; and I know I am 
 guilty of no exaggeration. I am speaking of the worst form of that 
 crime. For ordinary murders there may be some excuse. Revenge 
 may have arisen from the excess of feelings honourable in themselves. 
 A murder of hatred, or cruelty, or mere bloodthirstiness, can only be 
 imputed to a deprivation of reason. But here we have to do with 
 cool, deliberate, mercenary murder, nay, worse than this; for the ruf- 
 fians who go on the highway, or the pirates who infest the seas, at 
 least expose their persons, and, by their courage, throw a kind of false 
 VOL. i. 32
 
 374 THE SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 glare over their crimes. But these wretches dare not do this. They 
 employ others as base as themselves, only that they are less cowardly; 
 they set on men to rob and kill, in whose spoils they are willing to 
 share, though not in their dangers. Traders, or merchants, do they 
 presume to call themselves! and in cities like London and Liverpool, 
 the very creations of honest trade? I will give them the right name, 
 at length, and call them cowardly suborners of piracy and mercenary 
 murder! Seeing this determination, on the part of these infamous 
 persons, to elude the Abolition Act, it is natural for me to ask, before I 
 conclude, whether any means can be devised for its more effectual 
 execution. I would suggest the propriety of obtaining from the Por- 
 tuguese government, either in perpetuity, or for a term of years, the 
 island of Bissao, situated on the African coast, and the only foreign 
 settlement in that quarter where our commerce chiefly lies. This 
 cession would leave us a coast of five hundred miles' extent, wholly 
 uninterrupted, and greatly facilitating the destruction of the slave 
 traffic in that part of Africa. I would next remark, that the number 
 of cruisers employed on the African coast is too scanty. It is thither, 
 and not to America, that vessels intended to detect slave traders should 
 be sent; because a slave ship must remain for some weeks on the 
 coast to get in her cargo, whereas she could run into her port of des- 
 tination in the West Indies in a night, and thus escape detection; yet, 
 to watch a coast so extensive as the African, we had never above 
 two, and now have only one cruiser. I would recommend, that the 
 ships thus employed should be of a light construction and small 
 draught of water, that they may cross the bars of the harbours, in 
 order to follow the slave-ships into the shallows and creeks, and up 
 the mouths of rivers, and also that they should be well manned, and 
 provided with boats, for the same purpose. It would be impossible 
 to employ six or seven light ships better than on such a service. It 
 is even more economical to employ a sufficient number; the occasion 
 for them would, by this means, speedily cease. Once root out the 
 trade, and there is little fear of its again springing up. The industry 
 and capital required by it will find out other vents. The labour and 
 ingenuity of the persons engaged in it will seek the different channels 
 which will continue open. Some of them will naturally go on the 
 highway, while others will betake themselves to piracy, and the law 
 might, in due time, dispose of them. 
 
 But I should not do justice either to my own sentiments, or to the 
 great cause which I am maintaining, were I to stop here. All the 
 measures I have mentioned are mere expedients mere makeshifts 
 and palliatives, compared with the real and effectual remedy for this 
 grand evil, which I have no hesitation in saying it is now full time to 
 apply. I should, indeed, have been inclined to call the idea of stop- 
 ping such a traffic by pecuniary penalties, an absurdity and incon- 
 sistency, had it not been adopted by Parliament, and were I not also 
 persuaded, that in such cases it is necessary to go on by steps, and 
 often to do what we can, rather than attempt what we wish. Never- 
 theless, I must say, after the trial that has been given to the abolition
 
 THE SLAVE TRADE. 375 
 
 law, I am now prepared to go much further, and to declare that the 
 slave trade should at once be made felony. When I consider how 
 easily laws are passed, declaring those acts even capital offences, 
 which have heretofore been either permitted or slightly punished; 
 when scarce a session ends without some such extension of the cri- 
 minal code; when even capital offences are among the most nume- 
 rous progenies of our legislative labours; when I sec the difficulty 
 experienced by an honourable and learned friend of mine,* in doing 
 away the capital part of the offence of stealing five shillings: when 
 it is remembered that Lord Ellenborough, by one act created some- 
 where about a dozen capital felonies; when, in short, so many com- 
 paratively trivial offences are so severely visited; can one, who knows 
 what slave trading means, hesitate in admitting that it ought at length 
 to be punished as a crime? Adverting, again, to the record before 
 mentioned, I find that the vessel, ready fitted out for the slave coast, 
 has sold for about 11,000, including guns, tackle, cargo, and all; 
 but making allowance for seamen's wages, wear, and tear, &c. I 
 calculate the whole expense of carrying SOO slaves over to America, 
 at 20,000, as they will sell for 100 a-head, the net profits would 
 be near 60,000. Is this to be stopped by a pecuniary penalty? If 
 one such speculation, in four or five, succeed, they are safe: there is 
 even a temptation to engage in many speculations, because the ad- 
 venturer thus insures against the risk of capture, and becomes his 
 own underwriter against the chance of detection, which he could in 
 no other way insure against. If an inhuman being of this class fit 
 out ten or twelve such ships, and escape with three or four, his vile 
 profits are enormous; but it should be recollected, that all his vessels, 
 those which escape as well as those which are taken, spread devas- 
 tation over the African continent; and even a single cargo is the utter 
 ruin of whole villages. To this case, more than to any other that 
 can be fancied, pecuniary checks are peculiarly inapplicable. While 
 you levy your pence, the wholesale dealers in blood and torture 
 pocket their pounds, and laugh at your twopenny penalty. 
 
 I shall next advert to the 10th of Geo. II, for regulating watermen 
 between Gravesend and Chelsea. If a person of this description 
 carry above a certain number of persons, although no accident hap- 
 pen, he forfeits the use of the river; and if by accident any one be 
 drowned, the boatman who so overloads is transported for seven years 
 as a felon. How do we treat those who overload their vessels with 
 miserable negroes, so as knowingly and wilfully to ensure the death 
 of many, and the torments of all? Why, the slave carrying bill, 
 which is somewhat similar to the statute of George II in its object, 
 does not even deprive such offenders of the use of the sea, which 
 they have so perverted and polluted by their crimes; far less does it 
 transport for seven years, even where the deaths of hundreds on 
 board of such vessels happen not by accident, but as a necessary 
 consequence of the overloading. I make no reflection on the statute 
 
 * Sir Samuel Romilly.
 
 376 THE SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 of George II, but its provisions appear somewhat more applicable to 
 the slave-trader, than to the boatman. What has the Divine Legis- 
 lator said on this subject? There is a most false and unfounded 
 notion, that the sacred writings are silent upon it; I shall prove the 
 contrary. " Whosoever" (says the Scripture) " stealeth a man, and 
 selleth him, or in whose hands he shall be found, shall surely be put 
 to death." And what is our gloss or application of this divine text? 
 " Whosoever" (says the English law) " stealeth a man, and tortureth 
 him, and killeth him, or selleth him into slavery for all the days of 
 his life, shall surely pay twenty pounds!" I trust that this grievous 
 incongruity will at length be done away, and I now pledge myself 
 to bring in a bill to that effect early in the ensuing session; but I 
 earnestly hope, that in the meantime the House will leave nothing un- 
 atternpted which may tend to diminish the great evils complained of, 
 and give effect to one of the most holy of our laws. 
 
 I move, "That an humble address be presented to his Majesty, 
 representing to his Majesty, that this House has taken into its serious 
 consideration the papers which his Majesty was graciously pleased 
 to cause to be laid before this House upon the subject of the African 
 Slave Trade. That while this House acknowledges with gratitude the 
 endeavours which his Majesty has been pleased to use, in compliance 
 with the wishes of Parliament, to induce foreign nations to concur in 
 relinquishing that disgraceful commerce, this House has to express 
 its deep regret that those efforts have been attended with so little 
 success. That this House does most earnestly beseech his Majesty 
 to persevere in those measures which may tend to induce his allies, 
 and such other foreign states as he may be able to negotiate with, to 
 co-operate with this country in a general abolition of the Slave Trade, 
 and to concur in the adoption of such measures as may assist in the 
 effectual execution of the laws already passed for that purpose. 
 That this House has learnt with the greatest surprise and indignation, 
 that certain persons in this country have not scrupled to continue in 
 a clandestine and fraudulent manner the detestable traffic in slaves. 
 And that this House does most humbly pray his Majesty that he 
 will be graciously pleased to cause to be given to the commanders of 
 his Majesty's ships and vessels of war, the officers of his Majesty's 
 customs, and the other persons in his Majesty's service, whose situ- 
 ation enables them to detect and suppress these abuses, such orders 
 as may effectually check practices equally contemptuous to the au- 
 thority of Parliament, and derogatory to the interests and the honour 
 of the country,"
 
 CASE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 REV. JOHN SMITH, 
 
 MISSIONARY IN DEMERARA. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 OPPRESSION OF THE MISSIONARIES MOTION OF CENSURE OF THE 
 
 DEMERARA GOVERNMENT EFFECT OF THE DISCUSSION UPON PUBLIC 
 
 OPINION. 
 
 THERE never has been any case of colonial oppression attended with such impor- 
 tant consequences, and seldom any that excited so lively an interest as that of the 
 Missionary Smith, in 1823. This venerable person belonged to the sect of Inde- 
 pendents a class of men famous in all ages for their tolerant principles, as well 
 as for their love of liberty, and to whom this country owes a lasting debt of grati- 
 tude, for their strenuous exertions in the troubles of the seventeenth century, those 
 troubles in which the cradle of English liberty was rocked. He had been sent t* 
 Demerara by the London Missionary .Society, and its worthy head the truly respect- 
 able Mr. Alers Hankey. An insurrection of the Negroes having broken out, in 
 the fever of alarm which generally attends such events, among a set of men justly 
 conscious like the planters, both of the Negro's continued wrongs, and of their 
 own imminent dangers, it was fancied that Mr. Smith had in some way contributed 
 to the movement. That sucli a rumour once propagated should have gained ground 
 among the multitude, was perhaps not to be wondered at. But, that the consti- 
 tuted authorities should have been so far moved by it as to put the party on his 
 trial, without the most careful previous investigation of all the circumstances, seems 
 hardly credible, when we reflect on the extreme delicacy of the questions thus cer- 
 tain to be raised, nnd upon the religious feeling, still stronger than the political, sure 
 to be excited. There were, however, stranger things yet to be witnessed in the pro- 
 gress of this important affair. The popular agitation (if we may so call the excitement 
 among the handful of whites thinly scattered among the real bulk of the people) 
 extended itself to tho court, before whom the Missionary was tried; and the judges, 
 partaking of the violence which inspired the planters and other slave-dealers, com- 
 mitted a series of errors so gross as to mock belief, and of oppressions which are 
 unexampled in the dispensation of English justice. Among these acts, whether of 
 matchless ignorance or of gross injustice, the most striking but not tho only ones, 
 were, the constant admission of manifestly illegal evidence, and the condemning 
 to death a person only accused of misprision, a crime plainly not capital. The 
 Missionary was cast into a small and loathsome dungeon, in a state of health which 
 made any imprisonment dangerous. There, after somn weeks of the most severe 
 suffering, he yielded up his pious spirit, expiating with his guiltless blood the bin
 
 378 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of which there is no remission in the West Indies the sin of having taught the 
 slaves the religion of peace, and consoled them for the cruel lot inflicted by the 
 crimes of this world, with the hopes of mercy in another. 
 
 The arrival of this intelligence in England, speedily produced all the feelings 
 which might well have been expected. Pity for the victim; sympathy with his 
 unhappy widow; fellow feeling for his bereaved flock; alarm at the sight of reli- 
 gious persecution; contempt for the ignorance of the legal, and the pusillanimity 
 of the political authorities; indignation at the injustice of the courts were the sen- 
 timents that strove for the mastery among the great body of the British people: and 
 all were concentrated in one single, universal, and implacable feeling of revenge 
 against that execrable system, which, contrary to the law of God, pretends to vest 
 in man a property in his fellow-creatures, as fatal to the character of the oppressor 
 as to the happiness of his victim. 
 
 After maturely deliberating upon the course most fit to be taken, both with a 
 view to attain the ends of justice, and to make the blow most effectual, which this 
 question enabled him to level at Negro Slavery and colonial misgovernment, Mr. 
 Brougham, on the 1st of June, brought forward his motion of censure upon the 
 Demerara government, and the court, its instrument and accomplice in oppression. 
 A debate of surpassing interest ensued. The most distinguished speakers for the 
 motion were Mr. Williams,* Mr. Denman,j~ and Dr. Lushington. On the other 
 side, the majority inclined at first to resist the motion, and the Colonial Under Sec- 
 retary^: met it with a direct negative; but finding they were in peril of a defeat, 
 Mr. Canning, who did not very creditably distinguish himself on this occasion, 
 concluded by moving the previous question, upon which the division was taken. 
 Mr. Tindal made on this occasion his first parliamentary speech, with distin- 
 guished ability; and Mr. Scarlett|| ably argued on the same side; Lord Palmerston 
 and Messrs. Lamb and Grant]]" voted in the ministerial majority, thus giving to the 
 country an early pledge of those principles so hostile to colonial liberty, on which 
 they have since acted. The motion was lost by 146 to 193 votes, after an adjourned 
 debate. 
 
 But the effect produced by this great discussion was extreme and powerful. The 
 minds of men were turned to the real state of Negro bondage; the abuses and op- 
 pressions committed in the colonies were fully examined; the impossibility of car- 
 rying the acts now everywhere loudly complained of, unless by destroying so un- 
 natural a system, was generally recognized. " The Missionary Smith's Case," 
 became a watchword and a rallying cry with all the friends of religious liberty, as 
 well as the enemies of West Indian Slavery. The votes of those who had sided 
 with the government in resisting the motion were carefully recorded, for the pur- 
 pose of preventing them from ever again being returned to Parliament. The mea- 
 sures of the abolitionists all over the country became more bold and decided, as 
 their principles commanded a more general and warmer concurrence; and all men 
 now saw that the warning given in the peroration of the latter of these two speeches, 
 though sounded in vain across the Atlantic Ocean, was echoing with a loudness re- 
 doubled at each repetition through the British Isles, that it had rung the knell of 
 the system, and that at the fetters of the slave a blow was at length struck which 
 must, if followed up, make them fall off his limbs for ever. The cause of Negro 
 Emancipation has owed more to this case of individual oppression, mixed with reli- 
 gious persecution, than to all the other enormities of which Slavery has ever been 
 convicted. 
 
 * Now a judge in the Court of Queen's Bench. 
 
 t Now Lord Chief Justice, who has recently shown his habitual love of liberty by de- 
 claring slavery to be unlawful. 
 
 I Mr. W. Horton. Now Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. 
 
 |] Now Chief Baron of the Exchequer. t Now Lords Melbourne and Glenclg.
 
 SPEECH 
 
 IN THE CASE OF THE 
 
 REV. JOHN SMITH, 
 
 THE MISSIONARY. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 
 
 JUNE 1, 1824. 
 
 MR. SPEAKER, I confess, that in bringing before this House the 
 question on which I now rise to address yon, I feel not a little dis- 
 heartened by the very intense interest excited in the country, and the 
 contrast presented to those feelings by the coldness which prevails 
 within these walls. I cannot conceal from myself, that, even in' quar- 
 ters where one would least have expected it, a considerable degree of 
 disinclination exists to enter into the discussion, or candidly to examine 
 the details of the subject. Many persons who have upon all otber 
 occasions, been remarkable for their manly hostility to acts of official 
 oppression, who have been alive to every violation of the rights of the 
 subject, and who have uniformly and most honourably viewed with 
 peculiar jealousy every infraction of the law, strange to say, on tbe 
 question of Mr. Smith's treatment, evince a backwardness to discuss, 
 or even listen to it. Nay, they would fain fasten upon any excuse to 
 get rid of the subject. What signifies inquiring, say they, into a trans- 
 action which lias occurred in a remote portion of the world? As if 
 distance or climate made any difference in an outrage upon law or 
 justice. One would rather have expected that the very idea of that 
 distance the circumstance of the event having taken place beyond 
 the immediate scope of our laws, and out of the view of the people of 
 this country in possessions where none of the inhabitants have repre- 
 sentatives in this House, and the bulk of them have no representatives 
 at all one might have thought, I say, that in place of forming a ground 
 of objection, their remote and unprotected situation would have strength- 
 ened the claims of the oppressed to the interposition of the British le-
 
 380 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 
 
 gislature. Then, says another, too indolent to inquire, slow to hear, 
 but prompt enough to decide, " It is true there have been a great 
 number of petitions presented on the subject, but then every body 
 knows how those petitions are procured, by what descriptions of persons 
 they are signed, and what are the motives which influence a few mis- 
 guided, enthusiastic men, in preparing them, and the great crowd in 
 signing them. And, after all, it is merely about a poor missionary!" 
 I have now to learn, for the first time, that the weakness of the sufferer 
 his unprotected situation his being left single and alone to contend 
 against power exercised with violence constitutes a reason for this 
 House shutting its ears against all complaints of such proceedings, and 
 refusing to investigate the treatment of the injured individual. But it 
 is not enough that he was a missionary: to make the subject still more 
 unpalatable for I will come to the point, and at once use the hateful 
 word he must needs also be a Methodist. I hasten to this objec- 
 tion, with a view at once to dispose of it. Suppose Mr. Smith had 
 been a Methodist what then? Does his connection with that class 
 of religious people, because, on some points essential in their conscien- 
 tious belief, they are separated from the National Church, alter or les- 
 sen his claims to the protection of the law? Are British subjects to be 
 treated more or less favourably in courts of law are they to have 
 a larger or a smaller share in the security of life and limb, in the jus- 
 tice dealt out by the government according to the religious opinions 
 which they may happen to hold? Had Fie belonged to the society of 
 the Methodists, and been employed by the members of that commu- 
 nion, I should have thought no worse of him or his mission, and felt 
 nothing the less strongly for his wrongs. But it does so happen, that 
 neither the one nor the other of these assumptions is true; neither the 
 Missionary society, nor their servants, are of the Methodist persuasion. 
 The society is composed indifferently of churchmen and dissenters: Mr. 
 Smith is, or, as I unhappily must now say, was, a minister a faith- 
 ful and pious minister of the Independents that body much to be 
 respected indeed for their numbers, but far more to be held in lasting 
 veneration for the unshaken fortitude with which, in all times, they 
 have maintained their attachment to civil and religious liberty, and, 
 holding fast by their own principles, have carried to its uttermost pitch 
 the great doctrine of absolute toleration; men to whose ancestors this 
 country will ever acknowledge a boundless debt of gratitude, as long 
 as freedom is prized among us: for they, I fearlessly proclaim it they, 
 with whatever ridicule some may visit their excesses, or with what- 
 ever blame others they , with the zeal of martyrs, the purity of the 
 early Christians, the skill and the courage of the most renowned war- 
 riors, gloriously suffered, and fought, and conquered for England the 
 free constitution which she now enjoys! True to the generous prin- 
 ciples in church and state which won those immortal triumphs, their 
 descendants still are seen clothed with the same amiable peculiarity of 
 standing forward among all religious denominations pre-eminent in 
 toleration; so that although, in the progress of knowledge, other classes 
 of dissenters may be approaching fast to overtake them, they still are
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 381 
 
 foremost in this proud distinction. All, then, I ask of those who feel 
 indisposed to this discussion is, that they will not allow their preposses- 
 sions, or I would rather say their indolence (for, disguise it as they 
 will, indolence is at the bottom of this indisposition), to prevent them 
 from entering calmly and fully into the discussion of the question. It 
 is impossible that they can overlook the unexampled solicitude which 
 it has excited in every class of the people out of doors. That consider- 
 ation should naturally induce the House of Commons to lend its ear 
 to the inquiry, which, however, is fully entitled, on its own merits, to 
 command undivided attention. 
 
 It will be my duty to examine the charge preferred against the late 
 Mr. Smith, and the whole of the proceedings founded on that charge. 
 And in so doing, I have no hesitation in saying, that from the begin- 
 ning of those proceedings to their fatal termination, there has been 
 committed more of illegality, more of the violation of justice violation 
 of justice, in substance as well as form than, in the whole history of 
 modern times, I venture to assert, was ever before witnessed in any 
 inquiry that could be called a judicial proceeding. I have tried the expe- 
 riment upon every person with whom I have had an opportunity of con- 
 versing on the subject of these proceedings at Demerara,as well mem- 
 bers of the profession to which I have the honour of belonging, as others 
 acquainted with the state of affairs in our Colonies, and I have never met 
 with one who did not declare to me, that the more the question was 
 looked into, the greater attention was given to its details, the more fully 
 the whole mass was sifted the more complete was his assent to the 
 conviction that there was never exhibited a greater breach of the law, 
 a more daring violation of justice, a more flagrant contempt of all those 
 forms by which law and justice were wont to be administered, and 
 under which the perpetrators of ordinary acts of judicial oppression are 
 wont to hide the nakedness of their crimes. 
 
 It is now necessary to call the attention of the House to that un- 
 happy state of things which existed in Demerara during the course 
 of the past year. Certain instructions had been forwarded from this 
 country to those slave colonies which are more under the control of 
 the government than the other West India Islands. Whether- the 
 instructions were the best calculated to fulfil the intentions of those 
 who issued them whether the directions had not in some points gone 
 too far, at least in prematurely introducing the object that they had 
 most properly in view and whether, in other points, they did not stop 
 short of their purpose whether, in a country where the symbol of 
 authority was the constantly manifested lash of the driver, it was ex- 
 pedient at once to withdraw that dreadful title of ownership, I shall 
 not now stop to inquire. Snflicc it to say, that those instructions 
 arrived at Demerara on the 7th of last July, and great alarm and fever- 
 ish anxiety appear to have been excited by them amongst the white 
 part of the population. That the existence of this alarm so generally 
 felt by the proprietors, and the arrival of some new and beneficial 
 regulations, were marked and understood by the domestic slaves, 
 there cannot be a doubt. By them the intelligence was speedily coin-
 
 382 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 
 
 municated to the field Negroes. All this time there was no official 
 communication of the instructions from the Colonial government. 
 A meeting had been convened of the Court of Policy, but nothing had 
 been made public in consequence of its assembling. A second meet- 
 ing was held, and it was understood that a difference of opinion pre- 
 vailed among the members, after a discussion, which, though not 
 fierce, was still animated. The only means which the circumstances 
 of the case naturally suggested do not appear to have been adopted 
 by those at the head of affairs in Demerara. I do not impute to them 
 any intentional disregard of duty. It is very possible that the true 
 remedy for the mischief may have escaped them in the moment of 
 excited apprehension in the prevalence of general alarm, rendered 
 more intense by the inquisitive anxiety of the slave population, an 
 alarm and anxiety continued by the state of ignorance in which the 
 slaves were kept as to the real purport of the instructions from Eng- 
 land. But most certainly, whatever was the cause, the authorities at 
 Demerara overlooked that course of proceeding best calculated to allay 
 at least the inquisitive anxiety of the slaves; namely, promulgating in 
 the colony what it really was that had been directed by the instruc- 
 tions of the King's ministers, even if they were not disposed at once 
 to declare whether they would or would not carry those instructions 
 into execution. Unhappily they did not take that plain course. 
 Week after week was suffered to elapse; and up to the period when 
 the lamentable occurrence took place, which led to these proceedings, 
 no authentic, or, at least authoritative communication, either of what 
 had arrived from England, or of what was the intention of the au- 
 thorities at Demerara, was made to the slaves. This state of sus- 
 pense occupied an interval of nearly seven weeks. The revolt broke 
 out on the 18th of August. During the whole of that interval the 
 agitation in the colony was considerable; it was of a twofold charac- 
 ter. There was on one side the alarm of the planters, as to the conse- 
 quences of the new instructions received from his Majesty's govern- 
 ment; and on the other the naturally increasing anxiety of the Negro 
 as to the precise purport and extent of those instructions. There ex- 
 isted the general impression, that some extension of grace and bounty 
 had been made to the slaves. In the ignorance which was so stu- 
 diously maintained as to the nature of it, their hopes were proportion- 
 ably excited; they knew that something had been done, and they 
 were inquisitive to learn what it was. The general conversation 
 amongst them was, " Has not our freedom come out ? Is not the King 
 of Great Britain our friend ?" Various speculations occupied them; 
 reports of particular circumstances agitated them. Each believed in 
 the detail as his fancy or credulity led him; but to one point all their 
 hopes pointed; "Freedom! freedom!" was the sound unceasingly 
 heard; and it continually raised the vision on which their fancy loved 
 to repose. 
 
 And now, allow me to take the opportunity of re-asserting the 
 opinion which, with respect to that most important subject of emanci- 
 pation, I have uniformly maintained, not only since I have had the
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 383 
 
 honour of a scat in this House, but long before, with no other differ- 
 ence, save, perhaps, in the manner of ihe expression, correcting that 
 manner by the experience and knowledge which a more extended 
 intercourse with human life must naturally have bestowed. My 
 opinion ever has been, that it is alike necessary to the security of our 
 white brethren, and just, and even merciful to the Negroes those 
 victims of a long-continued system of cruelty, impolicy, and injustice 
 to maintain firmly Ihe legal authorities, and with that view, to 
 avoid, in our relations with the slaves, a wavering uncertain policy, 
 or keep them in a condition of doubt and solicitude, calculated to work 
 their own discomfort, and the disquiet of their masters. Justice to the 
 whites, mercy to the blacks, command us to protect the first from the 
 effect of such alarms, and the last from the expectation, that, in the 
 hapless condition in which they are placed, their emancipation can be 
 obtained meaning thereby their sudden, unprepared emancipation, 
 by violent measures, or with an unjustifiable haste, and without pre- 
 vious instruction. The realization of such a hope, though carrying the 
 name of a boon, would inflict the severest misery on these beings, 
 whose condition is already too wretched to require, or indeed to bear, 
 any increase of calamity. It is for the sake of the blacks themselves, 
 as subsidiary to their own improvement, .that the present state of 
 things must for a time be maintained. It is because to them, the bulk 
 of our fellow-subjects in the Colonies, liberty, if suddenly given, and, 
 still more, if violently obtained by men yet unprepared to receive it, 
 would be a curse, and not a blessing; that emancipation must be the 
 work of time, and, above all, must not be wrested forcibly from their 
 masters. Reverting to the occurrences at Demerara, it is undeniable 
 that a great and unnecessary delay took place. This inevitably, there- 
 fore, gave rise to those fatal proceedings, which all of us, however we 
 may differ as to the causes from which they originated, must unfeign- 
 edly deplore. 
 
 It appears that Mr. Smith had officiated as a minister of religion in 
 the colony of Demerara for seven years. He had maintained during 
 his whole life a character of the most unimpeachable moral purity, 
 which had not only won the love and veneration of his own imme- 
 diate flock, but had procured him the respect and consideration of all 
 who resided in his neighbourhood. Indeed, there is not a duty of his 
 ministry that he had not discharged with fidelity and zeal. That this 
 was his character is evident even from the papers laid upon the table 
 of this House. These documents, however, disclose but a part of the 
 truth on this point. Before I sit down I shall have occasion to advert 
 to other sources of information, which show that the character of Mr. 
 Smith was such as I have described it; and that those who are best 
 qualified to form an opinion, have borne the highest testimony to his 
 virtuous and meritorious labours. Yet this Christian minister, thus 
 usefully employed, thus generally revered and beloved, was dragged 
 from his house, three days after the revolt began, and when it had 
 been substantially quelled, with an indecent haste that allowed not the 
 accommodation even of those clothes which, in all climates, are neces-
 
 384 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 
 
 sary to human comfort, but which, in a tropical climate, are absolutely 
 essential to health. He was dragged, too, from his home and family 
 at a time when his life was attacked by a disease which, in all proba- 
 bility, would in any circumstances have ended in his dissolution; but 
 which the treatment he then received powerfully accelerated in its 
 fatal progress. He was first imprisoned in that sultry climate, in an 
 unwholesome fetid room, exposed to the heat of the tropical sun. This 
 situation was afterwards changed, and he was conveyed to a place 
 only suited to the purposes of torture a kind of damp dungeon, where 
 the crazy floor was laid loosely over stagnant water, visible through 
 the wide crevices of its boards. When Mr. Smith was about to be 
 seized, he was first approached with the hollow demand of the officer 
 who approached him, commanding him to join the militia of the dis- 
 trict. To this he pleaded his inability to serve in that capacity, as 
 well as an exemption founded on the rights of his clerical character. 
 Under the pretext of this refusal, his person was arrested, and his 
 papers were demanded, and taken possesssion of. Amongst them 
 was his private journal a part of which was written with the inten- 
 tion of being communicated to his employers alone, while the remain- 
 ing part was intended for no human eye but his own. In this state 
 of imprisonment he was detained, although the revolt was then entirely 
 quelled. That it was so quelled, is ascertained from the dispatches of 
 General Murray to Earl Bathurst, dated the 26th of August. At least 
 the dispatch of that date admits that the public tranquillity was nearly 
 restored; and, at all events, by subsequent dispatches, of the 30th and 
 31st, it appears that no further disturbance had taken place; nor was 
 there from that time any insurrectionary movement whatever. At 
 that period the colony was in the enjoyment of its accustomed tran- 
 quillity, barring always those chances of relapse, which, in such a 
 state of public feeling, and in such a structure of society, must be sup- 
 posed always to exist, and to make the recurrence of irritation and 
 tumult more or less probable. Martial law, it will be recollected, was 
 proclaimed on the 15th of August, and was continued to the 15th of 
 January following five calendar months although there is the most 
 unquestionable proof, that the revolt had subsided, and indeed that all 
 appearance of insubordination had vanished. 
 
 In a prison such as I have described, Mr. Smith remained until the 
 14th day of October. Then, when every pretence of real and imme- 
 diate danger was over; when everything like apprehension, save from 
 the state of colonial society, was removed: it was thought fit to bring 
 to trial, by a military court-martial, this Minister of the Gospel! I 
 shall now view the outside of that court-martial: it is fit that we look 
 at its external appearance, examine the foundations on which it rests, 
 and the structures connected with it, before we enter and survey the 
 things perpetrated within its walls. I know that the general answer 
 to all which has been hitherto alleged on this subject is, that martial 
 law had been proclaimed in Demerara. But, sir, I do not profess to 
 understand, as a lawyer, martial law of such a description: it is 
 entirely unknown to the law of England I do not mean to say in the
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 385 
 
 bad times of our history, but in that more recent period which is called 
 Constitutional. It is very true, that formerly the crown sometimes 
 issued proclamations, by virtue of which civil offences were tried before 
 military tribunals. The most remarkable instance of that description, 
 and the nearest precedent to the case under our consideration, was the 
 well known proclamation of that august, pious, and humane pair, 
 Philip and Mary, of happy memory, stigmatizing as rebellion, and as 
 an act which should subject the offender to be tried by a court martial, 
 the having heretical, that is to say, Protestant books in one's posses- 
 sion, and not giving them up without previously reading them. Simi- 
 lar proclamations, although not so extravagant in their character, were 
 issued by Elizabeth, by James the First, and (of a less violent nature) 
 by Charles the First; until at length the evil became so unbearable, 
 that there arose from it the celebrated Petition of Right, one of the 
 best legacies left to his country by that illustrious lawyer, Lord Coke, 
 to whom every man that loves the constitution owes a debt of grati- 
 tude which unceasing veneration for his memory can never pay. The 
 petition provides that all such proceedings shall thenceforward be put 
 down: it declares, "that no man shall be forejudged of life or limb 
 against the form of the Great Charter;" " that no man ought to be 
 adjudged to death but by the laws established in this realm, either by 
 the custom of the realm, or by acts of Parliament;" and " that the com- 
 missions for proceeding by martial law should be revoked and annulled, 
 lest, by colour of them, any of his Majesty's subjects be destroyed or 
 put to death, contrary to the laws and franchise of the land." Since 
 that time, no such thing as martial law has been recognised in this 
 country; and courts founded on proclamations of martial law have 
 been wholly unknown. And here I beg to observe, that the parti- 
 cular grievances at which the Petition of Right was levelled, were 
 only the trials under martial law of military persons, or of individuals 
 accompanying, or in some manner connected with, military persons. 
 On the abolition of martial law, what was substituted? In those days, 
 a standing army in time of peace was considered a solecism in the 
 constitution. Accordingly, the whole course of our legislation pro- 
 ceeded on the principle, that no such establishment was recognised. 
 Afterwards came the annual Mutiny Acts, and Courts Martial which 
 were held only under those acts. These courts were restricted to the 
 trial of soldiers for military offences: and the extent of their powers 
 was pointed out and limited by law. lint I will not go further into 
 the consideration of this delicate constitutional question; for the pre- 
 sent case does not rest on any niceties it depends not on any fine- 
 spun decisions with respect to the law. If it should be said, that, in 
 the conquered colonies, the law of the foreign state may be allowed to 
 prevail over that of England; I reply, that the Crown has no right to 
 conquer a colony, and then import into its constitution all manner of 
 strange and monstrous usages. If the contrary were admitted, the 
 Crown would only have to resort first to one coast of Africa, and then 
 to another, and afterwards to the shores of the Pacific, and import the 
 various customs of the barbarous people whom it might subdue; tor- 
 VOL. i. 33
 
 386 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 
 
 ture from one; the scalping knife and tomahawk from another; from 
 a third, the regal prerogative of paving the palace courts wilh the 
 skulls of the subject. All the prodigious and unutterable practices of 
 the most savage nations might thus be naturalized by an act of the 
 Crown, without the concurrence of Parliament, and to the detriment 
 of all British subjects born, or resident, or settling for a season, in those 
 new dominions. Nothing, however, is more clear, than that no prac- 
 tice inconsistent with the fundamental principles of the constitution 
 such, for instance, as the recourse to torture for the purpose of obtain- 
 ing evidence can ever be imported into a colony by an act of con- 
 quest. But all considerations of this nature are unnecessary on the 
 present occasion: for this court was an English court martial. The 
 title by which it claimed to sit was the Mutiny Act, and the law of 
 England. The members of the court are estopped from pleading the 
 Dutch law, as that on which their proceedings are founded. They 
 are estopped, because they relied for their right to sit on our own 
 Mutiny Act, which they time after time refer to; and they cannot now 
 pretend that they proceeded on any other ground. 
 
 Let us now look for a few moments at the operations which pre- 
 ceded the trial of this poor missionary. He was, as I have just stated, 
 tried by a court martial; and we are told by General Murray, in his 
 dispatch of October 21, that it was all the better for him, for that, if 
 he had been tried in any other manner, he might have found a more 
 prejudiced tribunal. Now, sir, I have no hesitation in saying, that if 
 I had been the party accused, or of counsel for the party accused, I 
 would at once have preferred a civil jurisdiction to the very anomalous 
 proceeding that took place. First of all, I should have gained delay, 
 which in most cases is a great advantage to the accused. In this par- 
 ticular case it must have proved of inestimable benefit to him, as the 
 fever of party rage and personal hostility would have been suffered 
 gradually to subside. By proceeding under the civil jurisdiction, the 
 addition of the Roman law to that of the common law necessarily occa- 
 sioned great prolixity in the trial. Months must have elapsed during 
 those proceedings, and at every step the accused would have had a 
 chance of escape. All this would have been of incalculable value; 
 and all this was lost to the accused, by his being summarily brought 
 before a military tribunal. The evidence of slaves was admitted by 
 the court without doubt or contest; a point, however, on which I do 
 not much rely; for I understand that in Demerara the usage in this re- 
 spect differs from the usage of some other colonies, and that the evidence 
 of Negroes against Whites is considered admissible, although it is not 
 frequently resorted to. Still, however, there is this difference as 
 respects such evidence between a civil and a military court; in the lat- 
 ter, it is received at once, without hesitation; whereas, if the matter is 
 brought before a civil jurisdiction, a preliminary proceeding must take 
 place respecting the admissibility of each witness. His evidence is 
 compared with the evidence of Other witnesses, or parts of his evidence 
 are compared with other parts, and on the occurrence of any considera- 
 ble discrepancy the evidence of that witness is finally refused. There
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 387 
 
 are also previous proceedings, had the subject been brought before a 
 civil jurisdiction, which might have had this effect: a discussion takes 
 place before the Chief Justice and two assistants, on the admissibility 
 of witnesses, who are not admitted as evidence in the cause until after 
 a preliminary examination; and I understand, that the circumstance of 
 a witness being a slave whose evidence is to be adduced against a 
 white man, in cases of doubt, always weighs in the balance against 
 his admissibility. But I pass all this over. I rest the case only on that 
 which is clear, undeniable, unquestioned. By the course of the civil 
 law, two witnesses are indispensably required to substantiate any 
 charge against the accused. Let any one read the evidence on this 
 trial, and say, how greatly the observance of such a rule would have 
 improved the condition of the prisoner. Last of all, if the accused had 
 been tried at common law, he would have had the advantage of a 
 learned person presiding over the court, as the Chief Justice, who must 
 have been individually and professionally responsible for his conduct; 
 who would have acted in the face of the whole bar of the colony; who 
 would also have acted in the face of that renowned English bar 
 to which he once belonged, to which he might return, and whose 
 judgment, therefore, even when removed from them by the breadth 
 of the Atlantic, he would not have disregarded, while he retained the 
 feelings of a man, and the character of an English advocate. He would 
 have acted in the face of the whole world as an individual, doubtless 
 not without assistance, but still with the assistance of laymen only, who 
 could not have divided the responsibility with him. He would, in 
 every essential particular, have stood forth single and supreme, in the 
 eyes of the rest of mankind, as the Judge who tried the prisoner. In 
 such circumstances, he must have conducted himself with an entire 
 regard to his professional character, to his responsibility as a judge, to 
 his credit as a lawyer. 
 
 Now, sir, let us look at the constitution of the court before which 
 Mr. Smith was actually tried. Upon a reference to the individuals of 
 whom it was composed, I find, what certainly appears most strange, 
 the president of the civil court taking upon himself the functions of a 
 member of the court martial, under the name of an officer of the militia 
 start". It appears to be the fact, that this learned individual was in- 
 vested with the rank and degree of lieutenant-colonel of the militia, a 
 few days before the assembling of the court martial, in order that he, a 
 lawyer and a civil judge, might sit as a military judge and a soldier! 
 Sir, he must have done this by compulsion. Martial law was estab- 
 lished in the colony by the power to which he owed obedience. He 
 could not resist the mandate of the governor. He was bound, in com- 
 pliance with that mandate, to hide his civic garb, to cover his forensic 
 robe under martial armour. As the aid-de-camp of the governor, he 
 was compelled to act a mixed character part lawyer, part soldier. He 
 was the only lawyer in a court where a majority of the soldiery over- 
 whelmed him. Having no responsibility, he abandoned or was com- 
 pelled lo sit helpless and unresisting, and see others abandoning 
 principles and forms which he could not, which he would not, which
 
 388 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 
 
 he durst not, have abandoned, had he been sitting alone in his own 
 court, in his ermined robe, administering the civil law. After this 
 strange fact respecting the higher members of the court, it is riot sur- 
 prising that one as strange should appear with regard to its subordi- 
 nate officers. The Judge-Advocate of a court martial, although cer- 
 tainly sometimes standing in the situation of a prosecutor, nevertheless, 
 in all well regulated courts martial, never forgets that he also stands 
 between the prisoner and the bench. He is rather, indeed, in the 
 character of an assessor to the court. On this point, I might appeal to 
 the highest authority present. By you, sir, these important functions 
 were long, and correctly, and constitutionally performed; and in a man- 
 ner equally beneficial to the army and to the country. But I may 
 appeal to another authority, from which no one will be inclined to dis- 
 sent. A revered judge, Mr. Justice Bathurst, in the middle of the last 
 century, laid it down as clear and indisputable, that the office of a 
 Judge-Advocate was to lay the proof on both sides before the court; 
 and that whenever the evidence was at all doubtful, it was his duty to 
 incline towards the prisoner. No such disposition, however, appears 
 in this Judge-Advocate, I should rather say in these Judge-Advocates; 
 for, one not being considered enough, two deputies were appointed to 
 assist him. These individuals exercised all their address, their caution, 
 and their subtlety, against the unfortunate prisoner, with a degree of 
 zeal bordering upon acrimony. Indeed, the vehemence of the prose- 
 cution was unexampled. I never met with anything equal to it; and 
 I am persuaded, that if any such warmth had been exhibited before a 
 civil judge by a prosecuting counsel, he would have frowned it down 
 with sudden indignation. 
 
 In the first instance, the Judge-Advocate concealed the precise na- 
 ture of the accusation. The charges were drawn up so artfully, as to 
 give no notice to the prisoner of the specific accusation against him. 
 They were drawn up shortly, vaguely, and obscurely; but, short, 
 vague, and obscure as they were, they were far from being as short, 
 as vague, and as obscure as the opening speech of the prosecutor. 
 That speech occupies about half a page in the minutes of the trial, 
 which yet give it verbatim. But scarcely had the prisoner closed his 
 defence, than a speech was pronounced, on the part of the prosecution, 
 which eighteen pages of the minutes scarcely contain. In this reply 
 the utmost subtlety is exhibited. Topic is urged after topic with the 
 greatest art and contrivance. Everything is twisted for the purpose 
 of obtaining a conviction; and, which is the most monstrous thing of 
 all, when the prisoner can no longer reply, new facts are detailed, 
 new dates specified, and new persons introduced, which were never 
 mentioned, or even hinted at, on any one of the twenty-seven pre- 
 ceding days of the trial! Again, sir, I say, that had I been the accused 
 person, or his counsel, I would rather a thousand-fold have been tried 
 by the ordinary course of the civil law, than by such a court. To 
 return, however, to its composition I rejoice to observe, that the 
 president of the supreme civil judicature, although he was so unwise 
 as to allow his name to be placed on the list of the members, or so
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 389 
 
 unfortunate as to be compelled to do so, refused to preside over the 
 deliberations of this court. Although he was the person of the high- 
 est rank next to the governor, and although in a judicial inquiry he 
 must naturally have been more skilful and experienced than any man 
 in the colony, nevertheless there he is in the list among the ordinary 
 members of the court; and as he must have been appointed to pre- 
 side, but for his own repugnance to the office, I am entitled to con- 
 clude that he refused it with a firmness not to be overcome. Against 
 the other members I have nothing whatever to say. The president 
 of the court, however, was Lieutenant-Colonel Goodman. Now, 
 that gallant officer, than whom I believe no man bears a higher cha- 
 racter, unfortunately, beside bearing his Majesty's commission, holds 
 an office in the colony of Demerara, which rendered him the last man 
 in the world who ought to have been selected as president of such a 
 judicature. Let the House, sir, observe, that the reason assigned by 
 Governor Murray for subjecting Mr. Smith to a trial before such a 
 tribunal, was not only that he might have in reality a fair trial, but 
 that he might not even appear to be the victim of local prejudice, 
 which it seems would have been surmised, had his case been submit- 
 ted to a jury, or a court, of planters. How is it, (hen, that with this 
 feeling the governor could name Lieutenant-Colonel Goodman to be 
 president of the court. For that gallant officer does, in point of fact, 
 happen to hold the situation of vendue-master in the colony of Deme- 
 rara, without profit to whom not a single slave can be sold by any 
 sale carried on under the authority of the courts of justice. Accord- 
 ingly, it did so turn out, that a few days before the breaking out of 
 the revolt, there were advertised great sales of Negroes by auction, 
 which most naturally excited sorrow and discontent among many of 
 the slaves. There was one sale of fifty-six of those hapless beings, 
 who were to be torn from the place of their birth and residence, and 
 perhaps separated for ever from their nearest and dearest connections. 
 I hold in rny hand a Colonial Gazette, containing many advertise- 
 ments of such sales, and to every one of them I find attached the sig- 
 nature " S. A. Goodman." One of the advertisements, that, I think, 
 for the sale of fifty-six Negroes, states, that among the number there 
 are many "valuable carpenters, boat-builders, &c., well worthy the 
 attention of the public." Another speaks of " several prime single 
 men." One party of slaves consists of a woman and her three chil- 
 dren. Another advertisement offers a young female slave who is 
 pregnant. Upon the whole, there appear to have been seventy or 
 eighty slaves advertised to be sold by auction in this single gazette, in 
 whose sale Lieutenant-Colonel Goodman, from the nature of his 
 office, had a direct interest. I do not for a moment affirm that this 
 circumstance was likely to warp his judgment. Probably, indeed, he 
 was not personally aware of it at the time. But I repeat, that, if this 
 proceeding were intended to be free from all suspicion, Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Goodman was one of the last men to select as the president 
 of the court. That, however, is nothing compared to the appointment 
 of the Chief Justice of tho colony as one of its members. He, the
 
 390 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 
 
 civil judge of the colony, to be forced to sit as member of a court 
 martial, and under the disguise of a militia officer by way of a quali- 
 fication ! He to whom an appeal lay against any abuse of which that 
 court martial might be guilty! From whom but from him could Mr. 
 Smith have obtained redress for any violation of the law committed 
 in his person? Yet, as if for the express purpose of shutting the door 
 against the possibility of justice, he is taken by the governor and com- 
 pelled to be a member of the court. That this tribunal might at once 
 be clothed with the authority of the laws which it was about to break, 
 and exempted from all risk of answering to those laws for breaking 
 them, the only magistrate who could vindicate or enforce them is 
 identified with the court, and at the same time so outnumbered by 
 military associates, as to be incapable of controverting, or even influ- 
 encing, its decision, while his presence gives them the semblance of 
 lawful authority, and places them beyond the reach of legal revision. 
 Sir, one word more, before I advert to the proceedings of the court, 
 on the nature of its jurisdiction. Suppose I were ready to admit, that 
 on the pressure of a great emergency, such an invasion or rebellion, 
 when there is no time for the slow and cumbrous proceedings of the 
 civil law, a proclamation may justifiably be issued for excluding the 
 ordinary tribunals, and directing that offences should be tried by a 
 military court such a proceeding might be justified by necessity; but 
 it could rest on that alone. Created by necessity, necessity must limit 
 its continuance. It would be the worst of all conceivable grievances 
 it would be a calamity unspeakable if the whole law and consti- 
 tution of England were suspended one hour longer than the most im- 
 perious necessity demanded. And yet martial law was continued in 
 Demerara for five months. In the midst of tranquillity, that offence 
 against the constitution was perpetrated for months, which nothing 
 but the most urgent necessity could warrant for an hour. An indivi- 
 dual in civil life, a subject of his Majesty, a clergyman, was tried at a 
 moment of perfect peace, as if rebellion raged in the country. He 
 was tried as if he had been a soldier. I know that the proclamation 
 of martial law renders every man liable to be treated as a soldier. 
 But the instant the necessity ceases, that instant the state of soldier- 
 ship ought to cease, and the rights, with the relations, of civil life to 
 be restored. Only see the consequences which might have followed 
 the course that was adopted. Only mark the dilemma in which the 
 governor might have found himself placed by his own acts. The only 
 justification of the court martial was his proclamation. Had that 
 court sat at the moment of danger, there would have been less ground 
 for complaint against it. But it did nM "assemble until the emergency 
 had ceased; and it then sat for eight-and-twenty days. Suppose a 
 necessity had existed at the commencement of the trial, but that in the 
 course of the eight-and-twenty days it had ceased; suppose a neces- 
 sity had existed in the first week, who could predict that it would not 
 cease before the second? If it had ceased with the first week of the 
 trial, what would have been the situation of the governor? The sit- 
 ting of the court martial at all, could be justified only by the procla-
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 391 
 
 mation of martial law; yet it became the duty of the governor to re- 
 voke that proclamation. Either, therefore, the court martial must be 
 continued without any warrant or colour of law, or the proclamation 
 of martial law must be continued only to legalize the prolonged exist- 
 ence of the court martial. If, at any moment before its proceedings 
 were brought to a close, the urgent pressure had ceased which alone 
 justified their being instituted, according to the assumption I am 
 making in favour of the court, and for argument's sake; then to con- 
 tinue martial law an hour longer would have been the most grievous 
 oppression, the plainest violation of all law; and to abrogate martial 
 law would have been fatal to the continuance of the trial. But the 
 truth is, that the court has no right even to this assumption, little be- 
 neficial as it proves; for long before the proceedings commenced, all 
 the pressure, if it ever existed, was entirely at an end. 
 
 I now, sir, beg the House will look with me, for a moment, at the 
 course of proceeding which the court, constituted in the manner and 
 in the circumstances that I have described, thought fit to adopt. If 
 I have shown that they had no authority, and that they tried this 
 clergyman illegally, not having any jurisdiction, I think I can prove 
 as satisfactorily that their proceedings were not founded on any 
 grounds of justice, or principles of law, as I have proved that the 
 court itself was without a proper jurisdiction. And here, I beg leave 
 to observe, that the minutes of the proceedings on the table of the 
 House are by no means full, although I do not say they are false. 
 They do not perhaps misrepresent what occurred, but they are very 
 far indeed, from telling all that did occur; and the omissions are of a 
 material description. For instance, there is a class of questions which 
 it is not usual to permit in courts of justice, called leading questions; 
 the object of which is to put into the witness's mouth the answers 
 which the examiner desires he should make. This is in itself objec- 
 tionable; but the objection is doubled, if, in a report of the examination, 
 the questions are omitted, and the answers are represented as flowing 
 spontaneously from the witness, and as being the result of his own 
 recollection of the fact, instead of the suggestions of another person. 
 I will illustrate what I mean by an example. On the fifth day of 
 the trial, Bristol, one of the witnesses, has this question put to him: 
 " You stated, that, after the service was over, you stayed near the 
 chapel, and that Quamina was there: did you hear Quamina tell the 
 people what they were to do?" To that the answer is, " No, sir." 
 The next question but one is, "Did you hear Quamina tell the other 
 Negroes, that on the next Monday they were all to lay down their 
 tools and not work?" To which the witness (notwithstanding his 
 former negative) says, "Yes, I heard Quamina say so a week before 
 the revolt broke out." Now, in the minutes of evidence laid on the 
 table of the House, both the questions and the answer to the first are 
 omitted, and the witness is described as saying without any previous 
 prompting, " A week before this revolt broke out, I heard Quamina tell 
 the Negroes that they were to lay down their tools and not work."
 
 392 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 
 
 The next instance which I shall adduce, of the impropriety of the 
 proceedings of the court, is very remarkable, comprehending, as it does, 
 almost all that I can conceive of gross unfairness and irregularity: I 
 mean the way in which the court attended to that which, for want of 
 a better word, I shall call hearsay evidence; although it is so much 
 worse in its nature than anything which, in the civil and even the 
 military courts of this country we are accustomed to stigmatize and 
 reject under this title, that I feel I am calumniating the latter by the 
 assimilation. In the proceedings before this court at Demerara, the 
 hearsay is three or four deep. One witness is asked what he has 
 heard another person say was imputed to a third. Such evidence as 
 that is freely admitted by the court in a. part of its proceedings. But 
 before I show where the line was drawn in this respect, I must quote 
 a specimen or t-wo of what I have just been adverting to. In the 
 same page from which I derived my last quotation, the following 
 questions and answers occur: " How long was it that Quamina 
 remained there? Three days: they said some of the people had gone 
 down to speak to Mr. Edmonstone; that Jack had gone with them." 
 "Do you know what has become of him (Quamina)? After I came 
 here, I heard he was shot by the bucks, and gibbeted about Success 
 middle path." And this, sir, is the more material, as the whole charge 
 against Mr. Smith rested on Quamina's being an insurgent, and Mr. 
 Smith's knowing it. So that we are here not on the mere outworks, 
 but in the very centre and heart of the case. And this charge, be it 
 observed, was made against Mr. Smith after Quamina was shot. It 
 would appear, indeed, that in these colonies it was sufficient evidence 
 of a man's being a revolter that he was first shot and afterwards gib- 
 beted. In one part of the examination, a witness is asked, " Do you 
 know that Quamina was a revolter?" The witness answers in the 
 affirmative. The next question is, " How do you know it?" Now, 
 mark, the witness is asked, not as to any rumour, but as to his own 
 knowledge; his answer is, " I know it because I heard they took him 
 up before the revolt began!" This evidence is to be found in pages 
 twenty-four and twenty-five of the London Missionary Society's 
 Report of the proceedings. In page thirty-five of the same publica- 
 tion. I find the following questions and answers in the evidence of 
 Mr. M'Turk: "Where were you on that day (the 18th of August)? 
 On plantation Felicity, until five o'clock in the afternoon." " Did 
 anything particular occur on that day? I was informed, (mark in- 
 formed^) I was informed by a coloured man, about four o'clock, that 
 the Negroes intended revolting that evening; and he gave me the 
 names of two said to be ringleaders, viz. Cato and Quamina of planta- 
 tion Success." Here, sir, we have a specimen of the nature of the 
 evidence adduced upon this most extraordinary trial. In pages 101 
 and 102 of the Missionary Society's Report, I find the following passage 
 in the evidence of John Stewart, the manager of plantation Success; 
 and be it in the recollection of the House, that the questions were 
 put by the court itself before which this unfortunate man was tried:
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 393 
 
 "Did Quamina, Jack, Bethney, Britton, Dick, Frank, Hamilton, 
 Jessamine, Quaco, Ralph, and Windsor, belong to plantation Success 
 at the time of the revolt? Yes. 
 
 "Did any of these attend the chapel? The whole of these, except 
 Ralph. 
 
 " Have the whole, or any of these, except Qnamina, been tried by a 
 court martial, and proved to have been actually engaged in the re- 
 bellion? I have been present at the trial of Ralph and Jack; and I have 
 seen Ralph, Jack, Jessamine, Bethney, and Dick, but have heard only 
 of the others." 
 
 " Who," again asks the Court, " was the most active of the insur- 
 gents in the revolt on plantation Success? Richard was the most des- 
 perate and resolute; Bethney and Jessamine were very active, and all 
 those mentioned, except Quamina and Jack, whom I did not see do 
 any harm; they were keeping the rest back, and preventing them doing 
 any injury to me." 
 
 The Court goes on to ask, " Was not Quamina a reputed leader (I 
 beg the House to mark the word reputed, and in a question put by the 
 Court) in the revolt? I heard him to be siich; but 1 did not see him." 
 
 Here, then, we have hearsay evidence with a vengeance; reputation 
 proved by rumour; what a man is reputed to be which would be no 
 evidence of his being so if you had it at first hand proved by what 
 another has heard unknown persons say, which would be no evi- 
 dence of his being reputed so, if reputation were proof. There are 
 here at least two stages distance from any thing like evidence; but there 
 may be a great many more. The witness had heard that Quamina 
 had been a reputed leader: but how many removes there were in this 
 reputed charge we are unable to learn. I next come to the evidence 
 of the Rev. William Austin; and I find, in page 112, that on the cross- 
 examination by the Judge- Advocate, ample provision is made for letting 
 in this evidence of reputation and hearsay. The Judge-Advocate says, 
 
 " Did any of these Negroes ever insinuate that their misfortunes were 
 occasioned by the prisoner's influence on them, or the declines he taught 
 them? I have been sitting for some time as a member of the Committee 
 of Inquiry; the idea occurs to me that circumstances have been detailed 
 there against the prisoner, but never to myself individually in my min- 
 isterial capacity." 
 
 This line of examination is too promising, too likely to be fruitful in 
 irregularity, for the Court to pass over: they instantly take it up, and, 
 very unnecessarily distrusting the zeal of the Judge-Advocate, pursue 
 it themselves. 
 
 By the Court. " Can you take upon yourself to sivear that you do 
 not recollect any insinuations of that sort at the Board of Evidence?" 
 
 The witness here objected to the question; because he did not con- 
 ceive himself at liberty to divulge what had passed before the Board 
 of Inquiry, but particularly to the form or wording of the question, 
 which he considered highly injurious to him. The President insisted 
 (for it was too much to expect that even the chaplain of the govern- 
 ment should find favour before that tribunal) upon the reverend wit-
 
 394 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 
 
 ness's answering the question; observing, that the Court was the best 
 judge of its propriety. The witness then respectfully requested the 
 opinion of the Court, and it was cleared. Upon re-entering, the As- 
 sistant Judge-Advocate said, "The Court is of opinion that you are 
 bound to answer questions put by the Court, even though they relate 
 to matters stated before the Board of Evidence." And, again, the 
 opportunity is eagerly seized of letting in reputation and hearsay evi- 
 dence. The Court itself asks 
 
 " Did you hear before the Board of Evidence, any Negro imputing 
 the cause of the revolt to the prisoner? Yes, I have." 
 
 I shall now state to the House some facts with which they are, per- 
 haps, unacquainted, as it was not until late on Saturday that the papers 
 were delivered. Among the many strange things which took place, 
 not the least singular was, that the prisoner had no counsel allowed, 
 until it was too late to protect him against the jurisdiction of the court. 
 Most faithfully and most ably did that learned person perform his duty 
 when he was appointed; but had he acted from the beginning, he, 
 doubtless, would have objected at once to the power of the court, as I 
 should have done, had I been the Missionary's defender. I should 
 have protested against the manner in which the court was constituted; 
 I should have objected, that the men who sat in judgment in that case 
 had previously sat upon many other cases, where the same evidence, 
 mixed with different matter not now produced, but all confounded 
 together in their recollection, had been repeated over and over for the 
 conviction of other persons. I ask this House whether it was probable 
 that the persons who formed that, court, should have come to the present 
 inquiry with pure, unprejudiced, and impartial judgments, or even with 
 their memories tolerably clear and distinct? I say it was impossible; 
 and, therefore, that they ought not to have sat in judgment upon this 
 poor Missionary at all. But is this the only grievance? Have I not 
 also to complain of the manner in which the Judge-Advocate and the 
 Court allowed hearsay evidence to be offered to the third, the fourth, 
 ay, even to the fifth degree? Look, sir, to what was done with 
 respect to the confession, as they called it, of the Negro Paris. I do 
 not wish to trouble the House by reading that confession, as I have 
 already trespassed at some length upon their attention. It will be suffi- 
 cient to state, that finding his conviction certain, and perhaps judging 
 but too truly from the spirit of the court, that his best chance of safety 
 lay in impeaching Mr. Smith, he at once avows his guilt, makes what 
 is called a full confession, and throws himself upon the mercy of the 
 court. This done, he goes on with one of I will say not merely the 
 falsest but one of the wildest and most impossible tales that ever en- 
 tered into the mind of man, or that could be put to the credulity even 
 of this court of soldiers. And yet, upon the trial of Mr. Smith, the 
 confession of this man was kept back by the prosecutors; that is to say, 
 it was not allowed to be directly introduced, but was introduced by 
 means of the questions I have last read, as matter of hearsay, which 
 had reached different persons through various and indirect channels. 
 In that confession, Paris falsely says, that Mr. Smith administered the
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 395 
 
 sacrament to them (the form of which he describes) on the day preced- 
 ing the revolt; and that he then exhorted them to be of good heart, 
 and exert themselves to regain their freedom; for if they failed then, 
 they would never succeed in obtaining it. He says, in another place, 
 that Mr. Smith asked him whether, if the Negroes conquered the colony, 
 they would do any harm to him? to which Paris replied in the negative. 
 Now, sir, only mark the inconsistency of this man's confession. In 
 one place, Mr. Smith is represented as anxious for his personal safety, 
 and yet, in almost the same breath, it is said that this very Mr. Smith 
 was the ringleader of the revolt the adviser and planner of the insur- 
 rection the man who joined Mr. Hamilton in recommending that the 
 Negroes should destroy the bridges, to prevent the Whites from bring- 
 ing up cannon to attack them. This Negro is made to swear, " I 
 heard Mr. Hamilton say, that the president's wife should be his in a 
 few days; then Jack said the governor's wife was to be his father's 
 wife; and that if any young ladies were living with her, or she had a 
 sister, he would take one for his wife." Mr. Smith is pointed out as 
 the future emperor; Mr. Hamilton was to be a general, and several 
 others were to hold high offices of different descriptions. Again; Mr. 
 Smith is made to state; that, unless the Negroes fought for their liberty 
 upon that occasion, their children's children would never attain it. 
 Now, I ask, is this story probable? Is there anything like the shadow 
 of truth in it? I said just now, that there was no direct mention of 
 Paris's evidence on the trial: it was found too gross a fabrication to be 
 produced. There were several others who, before the Board of Evi- 
 dence, had given testimony similar to this, though somewhat less 
 glaringly improbable; but their testimony also was kept back; and they 
 themselves were sent to speedy execution. The evidence of Sandy 
 was not quite so strong; but he, as well as Paris, was suddenly put out 
 of the way. The tales of these witnesses bear palpable and extrava- 
 gant perjury upon the face of them; they were therefore not brought 
 forward; but the prosecutors, or rather the Court, did that by insinua- 
 tion and side-wind, which they dared not openly to attempt. 
 
 I say that the court did this; the court, well knowing that no such 
 witnesses as Paris and Sandy could be brought forward men, the 
 excesses of whose falsehoods utterly counteracted the effect of their 
 statements contrived to obtain the whole benefit of those statements, 
 unexposed to the risk of detection, by the notable device of asking 
 one who had heard them, a general question as to their substance; 
 the prisoner against whom this evidence was given, having no know- 
 ledge of the particulars, and no means of showing the falsehood of 
 what was told, by questioning upon the part which was suppressed, 
 " Did you hear any Negro, before the Hoard of Evidence, impute the 
 cause of the revolt to the prisoner?" When, compelled to answer 
 this monstrous question, the witness could only say, Yes; he had 
 heard Negroes impute the cause to the prisoner; but they were the 
 Negroes Paris and Sandy (and those who put this unheard-of ques- 
 tion knew it, but he against whom the answer was levelled knew it 
 not) Paris and Sandy, whose whole tale was such a tissue of cnor-
 
 396 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 
 
 mous falsehoods as only required to be heard to be rejected in an 
 instant; and whose evidence for that reason had been carefully sup- 
 pressed. 
 
 Having said so much with respect to the nature of the evidence 
 offered against the prisoner, and having had occasion to speak of the 
 confessions, I shall now call the attention of the House to a letter 
 which has been received from a gentleman of the highest respecta- 
 bility, and entitled to the most implicit credit, but whose name I omit 
 to mention because he is still a resident in the colony. If, however, 
 any doubt should attach to his statement, I shall at once remove it, 
 by mentioning the name of a gentleman to whom reference can be 
 made on the subject I mean the Rev, Mr. Austin. He is a man 
 who had no prejudices or prepossessions on the subject: he is a cler- 
 gyman of the Church of England, chaplain of the colony, and I be- 
 lieve the curate of the only English Established Church to which 
 77,000 slaves can have recourse for religious instruction. I mention 
 this in passing, only for the purpose of showing, that if the slaves are 
 to receive instruction at all, they must receive it in a great degree 
 from members of the Missionary Society. [Mr. Brougham here 
 read a letter, in which it was stated that the Rev. Mr. Austin had 
 received the last confession of Paris, who stated that Mr. Smith was 
 innocent, and he (Paris) prayed that God would forgive him the lies 
 
 that Mr. had prevailed upon him to tell.] I shall not mention 
 
 the name of the person alluded to by Paris as having put the 
 lies into his mouth: it is sufficient at present to say, that he took a 
 most active part in getting up the prosecution against this poor Mis- 
 sionary. The letter goes on to state, that similar confessions had been 
 made by Jack and Sandy. The latter had been arrested and sent 
 along the coast to be executed, without Mr. Austin's knowledge (as 
 it appeared, from a wish to prevent him from receiving the confes- 
 sion); but that gentleman, hearing of the circumstance, proceeded 
 with all speed to the spot, and received his confession to the above 
 effect. He also went to see Jack, who informed him that Mr. Smith 
 was innocent, and that he (Jack) had said nothing against him but 
 what he had been told by others. Now I beg the House to attend 
 to what Jack, at his trial, said against Mr. Smith; giving a statement 
 which had been put into his mouth by persons who wished to injure 
 Mr. Smith, and bring the character of missionaries generally into dis- 
 repute. This poor wretch said that he had lived thirty years on 
 Success Estate, and that he would not have acted as he had done, if 
 he had not been told that the Negroes were entitled to their freedom, 
 but that their masters kept it from them. He went on to say, that 
 not only the deacons belonging to Bethel Chapel, but even Mr. Smith 
 himself, had affirmed this, and were acquainted with the fact of the 
 intended revolt; and this he stated as if, instead of being on his own 
 trial, he was a witness against Mr. Smith. He also threw himself on 
 the mercy of the court. Now what did the court do? They imme- 
 diately examined a Mr. Herbert, and another gentleman, as to this 
 confession. The former stated, that he took the substance of the
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 397 
 
 confession down in the Negro's own language to a certain point; the 
 rest was taken down by a gentleman whom I refrain from naming, 
 but who, I am bound to say, deserves no great credit for the part 
 which he acted in this unhappy scene. Jack, in this defence, thus 
 prepared and thus anxiously certified, says, or is made to say " I am 
 satisfied I have had a fair trial. I have seen the anxiety with which 
 every member of this court martial has attended to the evidence, and 
 the patience with which they have listened to my cross-examination 
 of the witnesses. From the hour I was made prisoner by Captain 
 M'Turk up to this time, I have received the most humane treatment 
 from all the whites; nor have I had a single insulting expression from 
 a white man, either in prison or anywhere else. Before this court, I 
 solemnly avow that many of the lessons and discourses taught, and 
 the parts of Scripture selected for us in chapel, tended to make us 
 dissatisfied with our situation as slaves; and, had there been no Me- 
 thodists on the east coast, there would have been no revolt, as you 
 must have discovered by the evidence before you: the deepest con- 
 cerned in the revolt were the Negroes most in Parson Smith's confi- 
 dence. The half sort of instruction we received I now see was 
 highly improper: it put those who could read on examining the Bible, 
 and selecting passages applicable to our situation as slaves; and the 
 promises held out therein were, as we imagined, fit to be applied to 
 our situation, and served to make us dissatisfied and irritated against 
 our owners, as we were not always able to make out the real mean- 
 ing of these passages: for this I refer to my brother-in-law, Bristol, if 
 I am speaking the truth or not. I would not have avowed this to 
 you now, were I not sensible that I ought to make every atonement 
 for my past conduct, and put you on your guard in future." Won- 
 derful indeed are the effects of prison discipline within the tropics! I 
 would my honourable friend, the member for Shrewsbury, were here 
 to witness them. Little indeed does he dream of the sudden change 
 which a few weeks of a West Indian dungeon can effect upon a poor, 
 rude, untutored African! How swiftly it transmutes him into a 
 reasoning, speculating creature; calmly philosophizing upon the evils 
 of half education, and expressing himself in all but the words of our 
 poet, upon the dangers of a liitle learning; yet evincing by his own 
 example, contrary to the poet's maxim, how wholesome a shallow 
 draught may prove when followed by the repose of the gaol! Sir, I 
 defy the most simple of mankind to be for an instant deceived by this 
 mean and clumsy fabrication. Every line of it speaks its origin, and 
 demonsirates the base artifices to which the missionary's enemies had 
 recourse, by putting charges against him into the month of another 
 prisoner, trembling upon his own trial, and crouching beneath their 
 remorseless power. 
 
 I have stated that, up to a certain point, the court received hearsay 
 evidence, and with unrestricted liberality. But the time was soon to 
 come when a new light should break in the eyes of those just judges 
 be opened to the strict rules of evidence, and everything like hear- 
 say be rejected. In page 116 I find, that, when the prisoner was 
 VOL. i. 34
 
 398 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 
 
 questioning Mr. Elliott as to what another person, Mr. Hopkinson,had 
 said, an objection was taken, the court was cleared, and, on its being 
 re-opened, the Assistant Judge-Advocate thus addressed Mr. Smith : 
 " The Court has ordered me to say, that you must confine yourself to 
 the strict rules of evidence ; and that hearsay evidence will not IN 
 FUTURE be received." Will not IN FUTURE be received ! ! ! UP TO 
 THAT PERIOD IT HAD BEEN RECEIVED ; nay, the judges themselves 
 had put the very worst questions of that description. I say, that great 
 as had been the blame due to the Judge- Advocate upon this occasion ; 
 violent, partial, unjust, and cruel as had been his conduct towards the 
 prisoner ; much as he had exceeded the limits of his duty ; flagrantly 
 as he had throughout wronged the prisoner in the discharge I was 
 about to say iu the breach of his official duty ; and grievously cul- 
 pable as were some other persons to whom I have alluded, their 
 conduct was decorous in itself, and harmless in its consequences, com- 
 pared with the irregularity, the gross injustice, of the judges who pre- 
 sided. Well, then, when the prosecutor's case was closed, and suf- 
 ficient matter was supposed to have been obtained by the most 
 unblushing contempt of all rules, from the cross-examination of the 
 prisoner's witnesses, those same judges suddenly clothed themselves 
 with the utmost respect for those same rules, in order to hamper the 
 prisoner in his defence, which they had systematically violated in 
 order to assist his prosecution. After admitting all hearsay, however 
 remote, after labouring to overwhelm him with rumour, and repu- 
 tation, and reports of reputation, and insinuation at second hand, 
 they strictly prohibited everything like hearsay where it might avail 
 him for his defence. Nay, in their eagerness to adopt the new course 
 of proceeding, and strain the strict rules of law to the uttermost against 
 him, they actually excluded, under the name of hearsay, that which 
 was legitimate evidence. The very next question put by Mr. Smith 
 went to show that he had not concealed the movements of the slaves 
 from the manager of the estate ; the principal charge against him being 
 concealment from " the owners, managers, and other authorities." 
 " Did any conversation pass on that occasion between Mr. Stewart, 
 yourself, and the prisoner, relative to Negroes; and if so, will you 
 relate it ?" Rejected. " Did the prisoner tell Mr. Stewart, that seve- 
 ral of the Negroes had been to inquire concerning their freedom, which 
 they found had come out for them ?" Rejected. These questions, 
 and several others, which referred to the very essence of the charge 
 against him, were rejected. How then can any effrontery make men 
 say that this poor missionary had an impartial trial? To crown so 
 glaring an act of injustice can anything be wanting? But if it were, 
 we have it here. The court resolved that its worst acts should not 
 appear on the minutes: it suppressed those questions; and expunged 
 also the decision, forbidding hearsay evidence FOR THE FUTURE! But 
 the rule having, to crush the prisoner, been laid down, we might at 
 least have expected that it would be adhered to. No such thing. 
 The moment that an occasion presents itself, when the rule would 
 hamper the prosecutor and the judges, they abandon it, and recur to
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 399 
 
 their favourite hearsay. In the very next page, we find this question 
 put by the Court, " Previous to your going to chapel, were you fold 
 that plenty of people were there on that day?" If hearsay evidence 
 was thus received or rejected as best suited the purpose of compassing 
 the prisoner's destruction, other violations of law, almost as flagrant, 
 were resorted to, with the same view. Conversations with Mrs. 
 Smith, in her husband's absence, were allowed to be detailed : the 
 sentences passed upon five other persons previously tried, were put 
 in, and I should suppose privately read by the court, as I find no al- 
 lusion to them in the prisoner's most able and minute defence, which 
 touches on every other particular of the case; and all mention of those 
 sentences is suppressed in the minutes transmitted by the court. For 
 the manifest purpose of blackening him in the eyes of the people, and 
 with no earthly reference to the charges against him, a long examina- 
 tion is permitted into the supposed profits he made by a sale of Bibles, 
 Prayer and Psalm-books, and Catechisms; and into donations he re- 
 ceived from his Negro flock, and the contributions he levied upon 
 them for church dues: every one tittle of which is satisfactorily answer- 
 ed and explained by the evidence, but every one tittle of which was 
 wholly beside the question. 
 
 I find, sir, that many material circumstances which occurred on the 
 trial are altogether omitted in the House copy. I find that the evi- 
 dence is garbled in many places, and that passages of the prisoner's 
 defence are omitted; some because they were stated to be offensive to 
 the government, others because they were said to be of a dangerous 
 tendency, others, again, because the court entertained a different 
 opinion on certain points from the prisoner, or because they might 
 seem to reflect upon the court itself. Mr. Smith was charged with 
 corrupting the minds of the slaves, and enticing them to a breach of 
 their duty, and of the law of the land, because he recommended to 
 them not to violate the Sabbath. It was objected against him also by 
 some, that he selected passages from the Old Testament, and by others, 
 that he did not, as he ought, confine himself to certain parts of the 
 New Testament: others, again, found fault with him for teaching the 
 Negroes to read the Bible. And when, in answer to these charges, 
 he cited passages from the Bible in his defence, he was told that he 
 must not quote Scripture, as it was supposed that every member of 
 the court was perfectly acquainted with the Sacred Writings a sup- 
 position which certainly does not occur to one on reading their pro- 
 ceedings. By others, again, this poor man was held up as an enthu- 
 siast, who performed his functions in a wild and irregular manner. 
 It was said that his doctrines were of a nature to be highly injurious 
 in any situation, but peculiarly so amongst a slave population. In 
 proof of this assertion, it was stated, that the day before the revolt he 
 preached from Luke xix, 41,42 "And when He was come near, 
 He beheld the city, and wept over it; saying, If thou hadst known, 
 even thou, in this thy day, the things which belong uuio thy peace-! 
 but now they are hid from thine eyes." Thus was this passage, 
 which has been truly described by the Rev. Mr. Austin as a text of
 
 400 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 
 
 singular beauty, turned into matter of accusation and reproach against 
 this unfortunate missionary. But if this text was held to be so dan- 
 gerous so productive of insubordination and rebellion what would 
 be said of the clergy of the Established Church, of whose doctrines no 
 fear was entertained? The text chosen by Mr. Smith on this occasion 
 appeared, to the heated imagination of his judges, to be one which 
 endangered the peace of a slave community. Very different was the 
 opinion of Mr. Austin, the colonial chaplain, who could not be con- 
 sidered as inflamed with any daring, enthusiastic, and perilous zeal. 
 But what, I ask, might not the same alarmists have said of Mr. Aus- 
 tin, who, on that very day, the 17th of August, had to read, as indeed 
 he was by the rubric bound to do, perhaps in the presence of a large 
 body of black, white, and coloured persons, such passages as the fol- 
 lowing, which occur in one of the lessons of that day, the 14th chapter 
 of Ezekiel. " When the land sinneth against rne by trespassing 
 grievously, then I will stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break 
 the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it, and will 
 cut off man and beast from it." " Though these three men" (who 
 might easily be supposed to be typical of Mr. Austin, Mr. Smith, and 
 Mr. Elliott,) " were in it, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters; 
 they only shall be delivered, but the land shall be desolate. Or if I 
 bring a sword upon that land, and say, Sword, go through the land, 
 so that I cut off man and beast from it; Though these three men were 
 in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither sons or 
 daughters; but they only shall be delivered themselves." Let me ask 
 any impartial man if this is not a text much more likely to be mis- 
 taken than the other? And yet every clergyman of the Established 
 Church was bound to read it on that day in that colony. 
 
 The charges against Mr. Smith are four. The first states, that, long 
 before the 18th of August, he had promoted discontent and dissatis- 
 faction amongst the slaves against their lawful masters. This charge 
 was clearly beyond the jurisdiction of the court; for it refers to mat- 
 ters before martial law was proclaimed, and consequently before Mr. 
 Smith could be amenable to that law. Supposing that, as a court 
 martial, they had a right to try a clergyman for a civil offence, which 
 I utterly deny, it could only be on the principle of martial law having 
 been proclaimed that they were entitled to do so. The proclamation 
 might place him, and every other man in the colony, in the situation 
 of a soldier; but if he was to be considered as a soldier, it could only 
 be after the 19th of August. Admitting, then, that the Rev. John 
 Smith was a soldier, under the proclamation, he was not such on the 
 18th, on the 17th, rior at any time before the transactions which are 
 called the revolt of Demerara; and yet it was upon such a charge that 
 the court martial thought proper to try him, and upon which alone it 
 could try him, if it tried him at all. But they had no more right, I 
 contend, to try him for things done before the 19th, in the character of 
 a soldier liable to martial law, than they would have to try a man, 
 who had enlisted to-day, for acts which he had committed the day 
 before yesterday, according to the same code of military justice. The
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 401 
 
 same reasoning applies (o three of the four charges. There is only 
 one charge, that of communicating with Quamina touching the revolt, 
 which is in the least entitled to consideration; yet this very communi- 
 cation might have been to discourage, and not to excite or advise the 
 revolt. In fact, it was clearly proved to have been undertaken for 
 that purpose, notwithstanding the promises of the Judge- Advocate to 
 prove the contrary. There are three things necessary to be established 
 before the guilt of this unfortunate man can be maintained on this 
 charge; first, that Quamina was a revolter; secondly, that Mr. Smith 
 knew him to be a revolter; and thirdly, that he had advised and en- 
 couraged him in the revolt; for the misprision, the mere conceal- 
 ment, must be abandoned by those who support the sentence, inasmuch 
 as misprision is not a capital offence. But all the evidence shows that 
 Quamina did not appear in such a character that Mr. Smith was 
 ignorant of it even if he did and that his communication was directed 
 to discourage, and not to advise any rash step into which the sufferings 
 of the slaves might lead them. As to his not having seized on Qua- 
 mina, which is also made a charge, the answer which the poor man 
 himself gave was a sufficient reply to any imputation of guilt that 
 might be founded on this omission. " Look," said he, " on these 
 limbs, feeble with disease, and say how was it possible for me to seize 
 a powerful robust man, like Quamina, inflamed with the desire of 
 liberty, as that slave must have been if he were a revolter, even if I 
 had been aware that he was about to head a revolt." But, in truth, 
 there is not a title of evidence that Mr. Smith knew of the revolt; 
 while there is abundant proof that he took especial measures and 
 watchful care to tell all he did know to the proper authorities, the 
 managers of the estate. If, again, the defenders of the court martial 
 retreat from this to the lower ground of mere concealment, and thus 
 admit the illegality of the sentence in order to show something like 
 matter of blame in the conduct of the accused, I meet them here as 
 fearlessly upon the fact, as I have already done upon the law of their 
 case; and I affirm, that lie went the full length of stating to Mr. 
 Stewart, the manager of the estate, his apprehensions with respect to 
 the impending danger; that "the lawful owners, proprietors, and 
 managers" were put upon their guard by him, and were indebted to 
 his intelligence, instead of having a right to complain of his remissness 
 or disaffection; that he told all he knew, all he was entitled to consider 
 as information (and no man is bound to tell mere vague suspicions, 
 which cross his mind, and find no abiding place in it ;) and that he only 
 knew anything precise respecting the intentions of the insurgents from 
 the letter delivered to him half an hour before the Negroes were up in 
 arms, and long after the movement was known to every manager in 
 the neighbourhood. The court, then, having no jurisdiction to sit at 
 all in judgment upon this preacher of the Gospel their own existence 
 as a court of justice being wholly without the colour of lawful autho- 
 rity tried him for things which, had they ever so lawful a title to try 
 him, were wholly beyond their commission; and of those things no 
 evidence was produced upon which any man could even suspect his 
 
 3-1
 
 402 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 
 
 guilt, if the jurisdiction had been ever so unquestionable, and the 
 accused had been undeniably within its range. But in spite of all the 
 facts in spite of his well-known character and upright conduct it 
 was necessary that he should be made an example for certain pur- 
 poses; it was necessary that the missionaries should be taught in what 
 an undertaking they had embarked; that they should be warned that 
 it was at their peril they preached the Gospel; that they should know 
 it was at the hazard of their lives that they opened the Bible to their 
 flocks; and therefore it was that the court martial deemed it expedient 
 to convict Mr. Smith, and to sentence him to be hanged by the neck 
 until he was dead! 
 
 But the Negroes, it seems, had grumbled at the reports which went 
 abroad respecting their liberation by an act of his Majesty, and the 
 opposition said to be given to it by their proprietors. Who propa- 
 gated those reports? Certainly not Mr. Smith. It is clear that they 
 originated in one instance, from a servant who attended at the gover- 
 nor's table, and who professed to have heard them in the conversa- 
 tions which took place between the governor and his guests. Another 
 account was, that a kept woman had disclosed the secret, having 
 learnt it from her keeper, Mr. Hamilton. The Negroes naturally 
 flocked together to inquire whether the reports were true or not; and 
 Mr. Smith immediately communicated to their masters his apprehen- 
 sions of what he had always supposed possible, seeing the oppression 
 under which the slaves laboured, and knowing that they were men. 
 But it is said, that at six o'clock on the Monday evening, one half hour 
 before the rebellion broke out, he did not disclose what he could not 
 have known before namely, that a revolt was actually about to 
 commence. Now, taking this fact, for the sake of argument, to be 
 proved to its fullest extent, I say that a man convicted of misprision 
 cannot by the law be hanged. The utmost possible vengeance of 
 the law, according to the wildest dream of the highest prerogative 
 lawyer, could not amount to anything like a sanction of this. Such 
 I assert the law to be. I defy any man to contradict my assertion, 
 that up to the present hour, no English lawyer ever heard of misprision 
 of treason being treated as a capital offence; and that it would be just 
 as legal to hang a man for a common assault. But if it be said that 
 the punishment of death was awarded for having aided the revolt, I 
 say the court did not, could not, believe this; and I produce the con- 
 duct of the judges themselves to confirm what I assert. They were 
 bold enough in trying, and convicting, and condemning the victim 
 whom they had lawlessly seized upon; but they trembled to execute 
 a sentence so prodigiously illegal and unjust; and having declared 
 that, in their consciences and on their oaths, they deemed him guilty 
 of the worst of crimes, they all in one voice add, that they also deem 
 him deserving of mercy in respect of his guilt! Is it possible to draw 
 any other inference from this marvellous recommendation, than that 
 they distrusted the sentence to which it was attached? When I see 
 them affrighted by their own proceedings starting back at the sight 
 of what they had not scrupled to do can I give them credit for any
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 403 
 
 fear of doing injustice: they who from the heginning to the end of 
 their course had done nothing else? Can I believe that they paused 
 upon the consummation of their work from any motive but a dread 
 of its consequences to themselves; a recollection tardy, indeed, but 
 appalling, that " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood 
 be shed?" And not without reason, not without irrefragable reason 
 did they take the alarm; for verily if they HAD perpetrated the last 
 act if they had DARED to take this innocent man's life (one hair of 
 whose head they durst not touch,) they must THEMSELVES have died 
 the death of the murderer? Monstrous as the whole proceedings were, 
 and horrid as the sentence that closed them, there is nothing in the 
 trial from first to last so astounding as this recommendation to mercy, 
 coming from persons who affected to believe him guilty of such enor- 
 mous crimes. If he was proved to have committed the offence of 
 exciting the slaves to acts of bloodshed if his judges believed him to 
 have done what their sentence alleged against him how unspeaka- 
 bly aggravated was his guilt, compared with that of the poor untutored 
 slaves, whom he had misled from their duty under the pretext of 
 teaching them religion! How justly might all the blood that was shed 
 be laid upon his hend! How fitly, if mercy was to prevail, might his 
 deluded instruments be pardoned, and himself alone singled out for 
 vengeance, as the author of their crimes! Yet they are cut off in 
 hundreds by the hand of justice, and he is deemed an object of com- 
 passion! 
 
 How many victims were sacrificed we know not with precision. 
 Such of them as underwent a trial before being put to death, were 
 judged by this court martial. Let us hope that they had a fair and 
 impartial trial, more fair and more impartial than the violence of poli- 
 tical party and the zeal of religious animosity granted to their ill-fated 
 pastor. But without nicely ascertaining how many fell in the field, or 
 by the hands of the executioner, I fear we must admit that far more 
 blood was thus spilt than a wise and a just policy required. Making 
 every allowance for the alarms of the planters, and the necessity of 
 strong measures to quell a revolt, it must be admitted, that no more 
 examples should have been made than were absolutely necessary for 
 this purpose. Yet, making every allowance for the agitation of men's 
 minds at the moment of danger, and admitting (which is more difficult) 
 that it extended to the colonial government, and did not subside when 
 tranquillity was restored, no man can avoid suspecting, that the mea- 
 sure of punishment inflicted considerably surpassed the exigencies of 
 the occasion. By the Negroes, indeed, little blood had been shed at 
 any period of the revolt, and in its commencement none at all: alto- 
 gether only one person was killed by them. In this remarkable cir- 
 cumstance, the insurrection stands distinguished from every other 
 movement of this description in the history of colonial society. The 
 slaves, inflamed by false hopes of freedom, agitated by rumours, and 
 irritated by the suspense and ignorance in which they were kept, ox- 
 asperated by ancient as well as more recent wrongs (for a sale of fifty 
 or sixty of them had just been announced, and they were about to be
 
 404 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE, 
 
 violently separated and dispersed,) were satisfied with combining not to 
 work; and thus making their managers repair to the town, and ascertain 
 the precise nature of the boon reported to have arrived from England. 
 The calumniated minister had so far humanized his poor flock his 
 dangerous preaching had so enlightened them the lessons of himself 
 and his hated brethren had sunk so deep in their minds, that, by the 
 testimony of the clergyman, and even of the overseers, the maxims 
 of the Gospel of peace were upon their lips in the midst of rebel- 
 lion, and restrained their hands when no other force was present to 
 resist them. " We will take no life," said they; " for our Pastors have 
 taught us not to take that which we cannot give;" a memorable 
 peculiarity, to be found in no other passage of Negro warfare within 
 the West Indian seas, and which drew from the truly pious minister 
 of the Established Church the exclamation, that " He shuddered to 
 write that they were seeking the life of the man whose teaching had 
 saved theirs!" But it was deemed fitting to make tremendous exam- 
 ples of those unhappy creatures. Considerably above a hundred fell 
 in the field, where they did not succeed in putting one soldier to death. 
 A number of the prisoners also, it is said, were hastily drawn out, at the 
 close of the affray, and instantly shot. How many, in the whole, have 
 since perished by sentences of the court, does not appear; but up to a 
 day in September, as I learn by the Gazette which I hold in my hand, 
 forty-seven had been executed. A more horrid tale of blood yet 
 remains to be told. Within the short space of a week, as appears by 
 the same document, ten had been torn in pieces by the lash: some of 
 these had been condemned to six or seven hundred lashes; five to one 
 thousand each; of which inhuman torture one had received the whole; 
 and two almost the whole at once. In deploring this ill-judged 
 severity, I speak far more out of regard to the masters than the slaves. 
 Yielding thus unreservedly to the influence of alarm, they have not 
 only covered themselves with disgrace, but they may, if cooler heads 
 and steadier hands control them not, place in jeopardy the life of every 
 white man in the Antilles. Look now to the incredible inconsistency 
 of the authorities by whom such retribution was dealt out, while they 
 recommend him to mercy, whom in the same breath they pronounced 
 a thousand times more guilty than the slaves. Can any man doubt 
 for an instant that they knew him to be innocent, but were minded to 
 condemn, stigmatise, and degrade him, because they durst not take his 
 life, and yet were resolved to make an example of him as a preacher? 
 The whole proceedings demonstrate the hatred of his persecutors 
 to be levelled at his calling and his ministry. He is denounced for 
 reading the Old Testament; charged with dwelling upon parts of the 
 New; accused of selling religious tracts; blamed for collecting his 
 hearers to the sacrament and catechism; all under various pretences, 
 as that the texts were ill chosen the books sold too dear the com- 
 municants made to pay high dues. Nay, for teaching obedience to 
 the law which commands to keep holy the Sabbath, ho is directly and 
 without any disguise, branded as the sower of sedition. Upon this 
 overt act of rebellion against all law, human and divine, a large por-
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 405 
 
 tion of the prosecutor's invectives and of his evidence is bestowed. 
 What though the reverend defendant showed clearly, out of the 
 mouths of his adversary's witnesses, that he had uniformly taught the 
 Negroes to obey their masters, even if ordered by them to break the 
 rest of the Sabbath; that he had expressly inculcated the maxim, No- 
 thing is wrong in you which your master commands; and nothing 
 amiss in him which necessity prescribes? What though he reminded 
 the court, that the seventh day, which he was charged with taking 
 from the slaves, was not his to give or to withhold; that it had been 
 hallowed by the Divine Lawgiver to his own use, and exempted in 
 terms from the work of slave as well as master of beast as well as 
 man? He is arraigned as a promoter of discontent, because he, the 
 religious instructor of the Negroes, enjoins them to keep the Sabbath 
 holy, when their owners allow them no other day for working; be- 
 cause he, a minister of the Gospel, preaches a duty prescribed by the 
 laws of religion and by the laws of the land, while the planters live 
 in the contempt of it. In short, no man can cast his eye upon this 
 trial, without perceiving that it was intended to bring on an issue be- 
 tween the system of the slave-law and the instruction of the Negroes. 
 The exemplar which these misguided men seem to have set before 
 them is that of their French brethren in St. Domingo: one of whom, ex- 
 ulting in the expulsion of the Jesuits, enumerates the mischiefs occa- 
 sioned by their labours. " They preached," says he, "they assem- 
 bled the Negroes, made the masters relax in their exactions, catechized 
 the slaves, sung psalms, and confessed them." " Since their banish- 
 ment," he adds, " marriages are rare; the Negroes no longer make 
 houses for themselves apart: it is no longer allowable for two slaves 
 to separate for ever their interest and safety from that of the gang" 
 (a curious circumlocutory form of speech to express the married state.) 
 "No more public worship!" he triumphantly exclaims, "no more 
 meetings in congregation! no psalm-singing, nor sermons, for them!" 
 " But they are still catechized; and may, on paying for it, have them- 
 selves baptized three or four times" (upon the principle, I suppose, 
 that, like inoculation, it is safer to repeat it.) In the self-same spirit 
 the Demerara public meeting of the 24th of February 1824, resolved 
 forthwith to petition the Court of Policy " to expel all missionaries 
 from the colony, and to pass a law prohibiting their admission for the 
 future." Nor let it be said, that this determination arose out of ha- 
 tred towards sectaries, or was engendered by the late occurrences. In 
 1803, the Royal Gazette promulgated this doctrine, worthy of all at- 
 tention: " He that chooses to make slaves Christians, let him give them 
 their liberty. What will be the consequence when to that class of men 
 is given the title of BELOVED BUETHKEN as actually is done? Assem- 
 bling Negroes in places of worship gives a momentary feeling of inde- 
 pendence both of thinking and acting, and by frequent meetings of 
 this kind a spirit of remark is generated; neither of which are sensa- 
 tions at all proper to be excited in the minds of slaves." Again, in 
 1823, says the government paper, "To address a promiscuous au- 
 dience of black or coloured people, bond and free, by the endearing
 
 406 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 
 
 appellation of ' My brethren and sisters/ is what can nowhere be 
 heard except in Providence Chapel;" a proof how regularly this ad- 
 versary of sectarian usages had attended the service of the church. 
 And, in February last, the same judicious authority, in discussing the 
 causes of the discontents, and the remedy to be applied, thus proceeds: 
 " It is most unfortunate for the cause of the planters, that they did 
 not speak out in time. They did not say, as they ought to have said, 
 to the first advocates of missions and education, We shall not tolerate 
 your plans till you prove to us that they are safe and necessary; we 
 shall not suffer you to enlighten our slaves, who are. by law our pro- 
 perty, till you can demonstrate that when they are made religious and 
 knowing they will still continue to be our slaves." "In what a per- 
 plexing predicament do the colonial proprietors now stand! Can the 
 march of events be possibly arrested! Shall they be allowed to shut 
 up the chapels, and banish the preachers and schoolmasters, and keep 
 the slaves in ignorance? This would, indeed, be an effectual remedy; 
 but there is no hope of its being applied! ! /" " The obvious con- 
 clusion is this Slavery must exist as it now is, or it will not exist 
 at all." "If we expect to create a community of reading, moral, 
 church-going slaves, we are woefully mistaken." Ignorant! oh, pro- 
 foundly ignorant, of the things that belong to their PEACE! may we 
 truly say, in the words of the missionary's beautiful text to that 
 peace, the disturbance of which they deem the last of evils. Were 
 there not dangers enough besetting them on every side without this? 
 The frame of West Indian society, that monstrous birth of the accur- 
 sed slave trade, is so feeble in itself, and, at the same time, surrounded 
 with such perils from without, that barely to support it demands the 
 most temperate judgment, the steadiest and the most skilful hand; 
 and, with all our discretion and firmness, and dexterity, its continued 
 existence seems little less than a miracle. The necessary hazards, to 
 which, by its very constitution, it is hourly exposed, are sufficient, one 
 should think, to satiate the most greedy appetite for difficulties to 
 quench the most chivalrous passion for dangers. Enough that a hand- 
 ful of slave-owners are scattered among myriads of slaves enough, 
 that in their nearest neighbourhood a commonwealth of those slaves 
 is now seated triumphant upon the ruined tyranny of their slaughtered 
 masters enough, that, exposed to this frightful enemy from within 
 and without, the planters are cut off from all help by the ocean. But 
 to odds so fearful, these deluded men must needs add new perils abso- 
 lutely overwhelming! By a bond, which nature has drawn with her 
 own hand, and both hemispheres have witnessed, they find leagued 
 against them every shade of the African race, every description of 
 those swarthy hordes, from the peaceful Eboe to the fiery Koroman- 
 tyn. And they must now combine in the same hatred the Christians 
 of the Old world with the Pagans of the New! Barely able to re- 
 strain the natural love of freedom, they must mingle it with the enthu- 
 siasm of religion vainly imagining that spiritual thraldom will make 
 personal subjection more bearable; wildly hoping to bridle the strong- 
 est of the human passions, in union and in excess the desire of liberty
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 407 
 
 irritated by despair, and the fervour of religious zeal by persecution 
 exasperated to frenzy. But I call upon Parliament to rescue the West 
 Indies from the horrors of such a policy; to deliver those misguided 
 men from their own hands. I call upon you to interpose while it is 
 yet time to save the West Indies; first of all, the Negroes, the most 
 numerous class of our fellow-subjects, and entitled beyond every other 
 to our care by a claim which honourable minds will most readily ad- 
 mit their countless wrongs, borne with such forbearance, such meek- 
 ness, while the most dreadful retaliation was within their grasp; next, 
 their masters, whose short-sighted violence is, indeed, hurtful to their 
 slaves, but to themselves is fraught with fearful and speedy destruc- 
 tion, if you do not at once make your voice heard and your authority 
 felt, where both have been so long despised. 
 
 I move you "That an Humble Address be presented to his Majesty, 
 setting forth, that the House, having taken into their most serious con- 
 sideration the proceedings which had taken place on the trial of the 
 Reverend John Smith, at Demerara, contemplated with the most 
 serious alarm the violation of law and justice which had there been 
 committed; and they did earnestly pray, that his Majesty would be 
 most graciously pleased to give orders for such an impartial and hu- 
 mane administration of the law in that colony as may secure the 
 rights not only of the Negroes, but of the Planters themselves."
 
 SPEECH, 
 
 IN REPLY, 
 
 IN THE CASE OF THE 
 
 REV. JOHN SMITH, 
 
 THE MISSIONARY. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 
 JUNE 11, 1824. 
 
 I DO assure the House, that I feel great regret at having to address 
 them again so late in the night; but, considering the importance of 
 the case, I cannot be satisfied to let it rest where it is without trespass- 
 ing upon their patience for a short time and it shall be for as short a 
 time as possible: indeed, that I rise at all is chiefly in consequence of 
 the somewhat new shape into which the proposition of the right hon- 
 ourable gentleman opposite* has thrown the question. For, sir, as to 
 the question itself, on the merits of which I before presumed at such 
 length on the indulgence of the House, not only have I heard nothing 
 to shake the opinion which I originally expressed, or to meet the argu- 
 ments which I feebly endeavoured to advance to its support, but I am 
 seconded by the admissions of those who would resist the motion: for, 
 beside the powerful assistance I have had the happiness of receiving 
 from my honourable and learned friends on the benches around me, 
 and who, one after another, have distinguished themselves in a man- 
 ner never to be forgotten in this House, or by their country! men of 
 all classes, and of all parties, without regard to difference of political 
 sentiments or of religious persuasion, will hold them in lasting remerri- 
 
 * Mr. Canning 1 . 
 
 f Mr. (now Lord Chief Justice) Denman; Mr. (now Mr. Justice) Williams; Sir 
 James Mackintosh and Dr. Lushington. The speeches of the two former have 
 already been mentioned. Dr. Lushington's was of the very highest merit. Sir J. 
 Mackintosh's was excellent also.
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 409 
 
 brance, and pronounce their honoured names with unceasing gratitude, 
 for the invaluable service which their brilliant talents and honest 
 zeal have rendered to the cause of truth and justice. Beside this, 
 what have I on the other side? Great ability, no doubt displayed 
 much learning exhibited men of known expertness and high official 
 authority put in requisition others for the first time brought forward 
 in debate an honourable and learned friend of mine, for whom I have 
 the most sincere esteem, and the best grounded, because it rests on a 
 long and intimate knowledge of his worth, and of those talents and 
 accomplishments of which I did not for the first time to-night witness 
 the exhibition, although they have now first met the universal admira- 
 tion of this House;* yet with all those talents, and all that research 
 from him and from others who followed him, instead of an answer, 
 instead of anything to controvert the positions I set out with, I find 
 support. I have an admission for it amounts to nothing less than 
 an admission a confession a plea of guilty, with a recommendation 
 to mercy. 
 
 We have an argument in mitigation of the punishment of this court 
 martial, and of the government who put their proceedings in motion 
 nothing against Mr. Smith, nothing on the merits or in favour of 
 those proceedings. An attempt, no doubt, was made by my honour- 
 able and learned friend the Attorney General,! to go a little further than 
 any other gentleman who has addressed the House. He would fain 
 have slept beyond the argument which alone has been urged from all 
 other quarters against this poor missionary, and would have attempted 
 to show that there was some foundation for the charge which makes 
 him an accomplice, as well as guilty of misprision: all others, as well 
 of the legal profession as laymen, and particularly the Secretary of 
 State, J who spoke last but one, have at once abandoned, as utterly 
 desperate, each and every of the charges against Mr. Smith, except 
 that of misprision; and even this they do not venture very stoutly to 
 assert. " It is something like a misprision," says the right honourable 
 Secretary; for the House will observe, that he would not take upon 
 himself to say that the party had been guilty of misprision of treason, 
 strictly so called. He would not attempt to say there was any treason 
 in existence of which a guilty concealment could take place; still less 
 would he undertake to affirm (which is, however, necessary, in order 
 to made it misprision at all) that Mr. Smith had known a treason to 
 exist in a specific and tangible shape, and that after this knowledge 
 was conveyed to him, he had sunk it in his own breast instead of di- 
 vulging it to the proper authorities. 
 
 All the charge was this in this it began, in this it centered, in tin's it 
 ended : " I cannot help thinking," said the rk'ht honourable gentleman, 
 "when I take everything into consideration, whatever may be the 
 facts as to the rest of the case I cannot get out of my mind the im- 
 
 * Mr. (now Lord Chief Justice) Tind.il, who then first spoke in Parliament. 
 | Sir J. Copley, now Lord Lyndhurst, who spoke with his accustomed -ahility. 
 ^ Mr Canning, who moved the previous question after Mr. (now ISir H.) \\ iliuot 
 Ilorlon had met the motion with a negative. 
 VOL. 1. 35
 
 410 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 
 
 pression, that, somehow or other, he must have known that all was 
 not right; must have suspected that there might be somethmg wrong\ 
 and knowing, or suspecting, there was something ivrong, he did not 
 communicate that something to the lawful authorities!" My honour- 
 able and learned friend,* indeed, went a little further: he felt, as a law- 
 yer, that this was not enough, and particularly when we are talking, 
 not merely of a crime, but of a capital crime not merely of a charge 
 of guilty, and of " something ivrong" and of having a misgiving in 
 your mind that that " something wrong," was known to him, and, be- 
 ing known to him, was concealed by him; but that on this something 
 was to be founded, not barely an accusation of wrong doing, but a 
 charge of criminality; and not merely a charge, but a conviction; and 
 not merely a conviction of guilt, but a conviction of the highest guilt 
 known to the law of this or of any country; and a sentence of death 
 following that capital conviction: and that ignominious sentence stand- 
 ing unrepealed, though unexecuted; sanctioned, nay adopted, by the 
 government of this country, because suffered to remain unrescinded; 
 and carried into effect, as far as its authors durst themselves give it 
 operation, by treating its object as a criminal, and making him owe 
 his escape to mercy, who was entitled to absolute acquittal. Accord- 
 ingly, what says my honourable friend,t in order to show that there 
 was some foundation for those proceedings? He feels that English 
 law will not do ; that is quite out of the question ; so does the Attorney 
 General. Therefore forth comes their Dutch code; and upon it they 
 are fain, at least for a season, to rely. They say, " True it is, all this 
 would have been too monstrous to be for one instant endured in any 
 court in England; true, there is nothing like a capital crime commit- 
 ted here; certain it is, if treason had been committed by some men 
 conspiring the death of the king; if an overt act had been proved; if the 
 very bond of the conspirators had been produced, with their seals, in 
 court, to convict them of this treason; and if another man, namely, 
 Smith, had been proved to have known it, to have seen the bond with 
 the seals and the names of the conspirators upon it, had been the con- 
 fidential depositary of their secret treasons, and had done all but make 
 himself their accomplice, he might have known it, he might have seen 
 its details in black and white, he might have had it communicated to 
 him by word or by writing, he might have had as accurate knowledge 
 of it as any man has of his own household, and he might have buried 
 the secret in his own breast, so that no one should learn it until the 
 design, well matured, was at length carried openly into execution; and 
 yet that knowledge and concealment, that misprision of treason, could 
 not by possibility have subjected him to capital punishment in any 
 English court of justice!" 
 
 This they know, and this they admit; and the question being, What 
 shall we do, and how shall we express our opinion on the conduct of a 
 court martial, which, having no jurisdiction with respect to the offence, 
 even if the person of the prisoner had been under their authority, chose 
 
 * The Attorney General. | Mr. Tindal.
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 411 
 
 to try him over whom they had no jurisdiction of whatever offence he 
 might be accused; and, moreover, to try him capitally for an offence 
 for which no capital sentence could be passed, even if the party had 
 been amenable to their jurisdiction, and if, when put upon his trial, he 
 had at once pleaded guilty, and confessed that he had committed all ho 
 was accused of a hundred times over this being the question before 
 the House, my honourable and learned friends being called upon to 
 say how we shall deal with those who first arrogate to themselves an 
 authority utterly unlawful, and then sentence a man, whom they had 
 no pretence for trying, to be hanged for that which he never did, but 
 which, had he done it, is not a capital crime: such being the question, 
 the gentlemen on the other side, feeling the pinch of it, and aware that 
 there is no warrant for such a sentence in the English law, betake them- 
 selves to the Dutch, contending that it punishes misprision with death! 
 
 But here my honourable friend* gets into a difficulty, which all his 
 acuteness only enables him to see the more clearly that there is no 
 struggling against, and from which the whole resources of his learning 
 have no power to extricate him. Nay I speak it with the most sin- 
 cere respect for him I was not the only person who felt, as he was 
 going on, that in this part of his progress he seemed oppressed with 
 the nature of his task, and, far from getting over the ground with as 
 easy a pace and as firm a footstep as usual, he hesitated and even 
 stumbled; as if unaware beforehand of the slipperiness of the path, and 
 only sensible of the kind of work he had undertaken when already in 
 the midst of it. The difficulty, the insurmountable difficulty, is this: 
 You must choose between jurisdiction to try at all, and power to punish 
 misprision capitally; both you cannot have by the same law. If the 
 Dutch law make the crime capital, which the English does not, the 
 Dutch law gives you no right to try by a military tribunal. The Eng- 
 lish law it was that alone could make the court martial legal; so, at 
 least, the court and the prosecutor say. "Necessity," they assert, 
 "has no law proclaim martial law, every man is a soldier, and 
 amenable to a military court." They may be right in this position, or 
 they may be wrong; but it is their only defence of the jurisdiction 
 which they assumed. By the law of England, then, not of Holland, 
 was the court assembled. According to English forms it sate; to Eng- 
 lish law-principles it affected to square its modes of proceeding; to 
 authorities of English law it constantly appealed. Here indeed, this 
 night, we have heard Dutch jurists cited in ample profusion; the eru- 
 dite Van Schooten, the weighty Voetius, the luminous Huber, orna- 
 ments to the Batnvian school and Dommfit, who is neither Dutch nor 
 English, but merely French, and therefore has as much to do with the 
 question, in any conceivable view, as if he were a Mogul doctor; yet 
 his name too is brandished before us, as if to show the exuberance and 
 variety of the stores at the command of my honourable and learned 
 friends. 
 
 But was any whisper of all this Hollandish learning ever heard in 
 
 * Mr. Tindal.
 
 412 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 
 
 the court ilself? Was it on those worthies that the parties themselves 
 relied, for whom the fertile and lettered invention of the gentlemen 
 opposite is now so nimbly forging excuses? No such thing. They 
 appealed to the Institutes of that far-famed counsellor of justice, Black- 
 stone; the edict of the States-General, commonly called the "Mutiny 
 Act;" the Crown Law of that elaborate commentator of Rotterdam, 
 Hawkins; and the more modern tractate upon evidence of my excel- 
 lent friend, the very learned professor Phillips of Leyden. It is to 
 these authorities that the Judge Advocate, or rather the many Judge 
 Advocates who were let loose upon the prisoner, constantly make 
 their appeal; with quotations from these laws and these text- writers 
 that they garnish their arguments; and Voet, and Van Schooten, and 
 Huber, are no more mentioned than if they had never existed, or 
 Guiana had never been a colony of the Dutch. Thus, then, in order 
 to get jurisdiction, without which you cannot proceed one step, be- 
 cause the whole is wrong from the beginning if you have it not, you 
 must abandon your Dutch authors, leave your foreign codes, and be 
 content with that rude, old-fashioned system, part written, part tradi- 
 tional, the half-Norman half-Saxon code, which we are wont (and no 
 man more than my honourable and learned friend, himself one of its 
 choicest expounders) to respect, under the name of the eld every-day 
 law of England. Without that you cannot stir one step. Having got- 
 ten your foot on that, you have something like a jurisdiction, or at 
 least a claim to a jurisdiction, for the court martial. But, then, 
 what becomes of your capital punishment? Where is your power 
 of putting to death for misprision? Because, the instant you aban- 
 don the Dutch law, away goes capital punishment for misprision; 
 and if you acquit this court martial of the monstrous solecism 
 (I purposely avoid giving it a worse name) of having pronounced 
 sentence of death for a clergyable offence, you can only do so by hav- 
 ing recourse to the Dutch law, and then away goes the jurisdiction: 
 so that the one law takes from you the jurisdiction the authority to 
 try at all; and the other takes away the right to punish as you have 
 punished. Between the horns of this dilemma I leave my honourable 
 and learned friend, as I must of necessity leave him where he has 
 chosen to plant himself; suspended in such a fashion that he can never, 
 by any possibility, quit the one point, without being instantly trans- 
 fixed upon the other. 
 
 Now, this is no immaterial part of the argument; on the contrary, 
 it lies at the foundation of the whole; and I cannot help thinking, that 
 the practised understanding of my other learned friend* perceived its 
 great importance, and had some misgivings that it must prove decisive 
 of the question; for he applied himself to strengthen the weak part, to 
 find some way by which he might steer out of the dilemma some mid- 
 dle course, which might enable him to obtain the jurisdiction from one 
 one law, and the capital punishment from the other. Thus, according 
 to him, you must neither proceed entirely by the Dutch, nor yet en- 
 
 * The Attorney General.
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 413 
 
 tirely by the English law, but just take from each what suits your 
 immediate purpose, pursuing it no further than the necessities of your 
 case require, and the flaws in that case render safe. The English law 
 gives you jurisdiction; use it then to open the doors: but, having them 
 thus flung open, allow not to enter the gracious figure of English jus- 
 tice, with those forms, the handmaids that attend her. Make way for 
 the body of Dutch jurisprudence, and enthrone her, surrounded with 
 her ministers, the Hubers, and Voets, and Van Schootens. Now this 
 mode of treating a diificulty is one of the most ordinary, and among 
 the least excusable, of all sophisms; it is that by which, in order to 
 get rid of an absurdity inherent in any proposition, we arbitrarily and 
 gratuitously alter its terms, as soon as we perceive the contradictory 
 results to which it necessarily leads; carving and moulding our data 
 at pleasure; not before the argument begins, but after the consequences 
 are perceived. The alteration suddenly made arises, not out of the 
 argument, or the facts, or the nature of things; but is made violently, 
 and because there is no doing without it; and it is never thought of 
 till this necessity is discovered. Thus, no one ever dreamt of calling 
 in the Dutch code, till better lawyers than the court martial found 
 that the English law condemned half their proceedings; and then the 
 English was abandoned, until it was perceived that the other half 
 stood condemned by the Dutch. Therefore a third expedient is re- 
 sorted to, that of a party-coloured code; the law under which they 
 claim their justification is to be part Dutch, when that will suit; part 
 English, when they can't get on without it; something compounded of 
 both, and very little like either; showing to demonstration that they 
 acted without any law, or only set about discovering by what law they 
 acted after their conduct was impeached; and then were forced to fabri- 
 cate a new law to suit their proceedings, instead of having squared 
 those proceedings to any known rule of any existing law on the face 
 of the earth. 
 
 To put all such arbitrary assumptions at once to flight, I need only 
 remind the House how the jurists of Demerara treated the Dutch law. 
 Admitting, for argument's sake, that the doois of the court were opened 
 by the English law giving them jurisdiction, then that by violence the 
 Dutch law was forced through the door, and made to preside, of course 
 we shall find all appeal to English statutes, and forms, and common 
 law, cease, from the instant that they have served their purpose of 
 giving jurisdiction, and everything will be conducted upon Dutch 
 principles. Was it so? Was any mention made, from beginning to 
 end, of Dutch rules or Dutch forms? Was there a word quoted of 
 those works now so glibly referred to? Was there a single name pro- 
 nounced of those authorities, for the first time cited in this House 
 to-night? Nothing of the kind. All was English, from first to last: 
 all the laws appealed to on either side, all the writers quoted, all 
 the principles laid down, without a single exception, were the same 
 that would have been resorted to in any court silting in this country; 
 and the court martial were content to rest their proceedings upon our 
 own law, and to be an English judicature, or to be nothing at all. 
 
 35*
 
 414 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 
 
 Sir, I rejoice (well knowing that a legal argument, whether Dutch 
 or English, or, like the doctrine I have been combating, made up of 
 both, is at all times very little of a favourite with this House, and less 
 than ever at the hour of the morning to which we are now approach- 
 ing,) I rejoice greatly that what I have said, coupled with the far more 
 luminous and cogent reasons which have been urged by my honoura- 
 ble and learned friends around me, may suffice to settle the point of 
 law, and relieve me from the necessity of detaining you longer upon 
 so dry a part of the question. My only excuse for having gone so far 
 into it, is its intimate connection with the defence of the court martial, 
 of whose case it indeed forms the very corner-stone. And now, in 
 passing to the merits of the inquiry, before that court, I have to wish 
 that my honourable and learned friend, the member for Peterborough* 
 was here in his place; that, after the example of others who have gone 
 before me, I too might in my turn have taken the opportunity of pay- 
 ing my respects to him. But, if he has gone himself, he has left a 
 worthy representative in the honourable Under Secretary for Colonial 
 Affairst, by whom, in the quality for which his very remarkable 
 speech the other night shone conspicuous I mean, an entire ignorance 
 of the facts of the case he is, I will not say out done, because that 
 may safely be pronounced to be beyond the power of any man, but 
 almost, if not altogether, equalled. There was, however, this difference 
 between the two, that the honourable Under Secretary, with a gravity 
 quite imposing, described the great pains he had taken to master the 
 details of the subject, whereas my honourable friend avowed that he 
 considered it as a matter which any one might take up at an odd 
 moment during the debate; that, accordingly, he had come down to the 
 House perfectly ignorant of the whole question, and been content to pick 
 up what he could, while the discussion went on, partly by listening, 
 partly by reading. I would most readily have taken his word for this, 
 as I would for anything else he chose to assert; but if that had not 
 been sufficient, his speech would have proved it to demonstration. If, 
 as he says, he came down in a state of entire ignorance, assuredly he 
 had not mended his condition by the sort of attention he might have 
 given to the question in his place, unless a man can be said to change 
 his ignorance for the better, by gaining a kind of half-blind, left-handed 
 knowledge, which is worse than ignorance, as it is safer to be unin- 
 formed than misinformed. 
 
 In this respect, too, the right honourable Secretary of StateJ is his 
 worthy successor; for the pains which he has taken to inform himself, 
 seem but to have led him the more widely astray. I protest I never 
 in my life witnessed such an elaborate neglect of the evidence as per- 
 vaded the latter part of his speech, which affected to discuss it. He 
 appeared to have got as far wrong, without the same bias, as my hon- 
 ourable and learned friend was led by the jaundiced eye with which he 
 naturallyenough views such questions,fromhis\VestIndian connections 
 and the recollections associated with the place of his birth and the scene 
 
 * Mr. Scarlett. | Mr. (now Sir R.) Wilmot Horton. Mr. Canning.
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 415 
 
 of his earliest years. Without any such excuse from nature, the right 
 honourable Secretary labours to be in the wrong, and is eminently suc- 
 cessful. His argument against Mr. Smith rests upon the assumption that 
 he had an accurate knowledge of a plot, which the right honourable Sec- 
 retary by another assumption supposes to have been proved; and he 
 assumes that Mr. Smith had this knowledge twenty-four hours before he 
 could possibly have known anything of the matter. Everything turns 
 upon this; and whoever has read the evidence with attention, is perfectly 
 aware that this is the fact. Tell me not of Jacky Reed's letter, which 
 was communicated to him on Monday evening at six o'clock, or later! 
 Talk not to me of going to the constituted authorities as soon as he 
 knew of a revolt ! If he had known it the night before ; if he had been 
 aware of the design before the insurrection broke out then, indeed, 
 there might have been some ground for speaking about concealment. 
 If he had obtained any previous intelligence, though nothing had been 
 confided to him, by a figure of speech we might have talked of con- 
 cealment hardly of misprision. But when did the note reach him? 
 The only discrepancy in the evidence is, that one witness says it was 
 delivered at six o'clock, and he was the bearer of it; while another, 
 ascertaining the time by circumstances, which are much less likely to 
 deceive than the vague recollection of an hour, fixes the moment, by 
 saying that it was at night-fall, half an hour later. But take it at 
 the earliest period, and let it be six o'clock. When did the revolt 
 break out? I hear it said, at half-past six. No such thing: it broke 
 out at half-past three: ay, and earlier. Look at the fifteenth page of 
 the evidence, and you will find one witness speaking to what happened 
 at half-past three, and another at half-past four. A most important 
 step had then been taken. Quamina and Jack, the two alleged ring- 
 leaders one of them, Jack, unquestionably was the contriver of the 
 whole movement, or resolution to strike work, or call it what you will; 
 and Quamina was suspected and I believe the suspicion to have 
 been utterly groundless; nor have I yet heard, throughout the whole 
 proceedings, a word to confirm it but both these men, the real and the 
 supposed ringleader, had been actually in custody for the revolt, nay, 
 had been both arrested for the revolt and rescued by the revolters, two 
 or three hours before the letter came into Mr. Smith's hands! It is 
 for not disclosing this, which all the world knew better than himself 
 for not telling them at night what they knew in the afternoon that 
 he is to be blamed! Why go and communicate to a man that the sun 
 is shining at twelve o'clock in the day? Why tell this House that 
 these candles are burning; that we are sitting in a great crowd, in no 
 very pleasant atmosphere, and listening to a tedious speech? Why 
 state things which were as plain as the day light, and which every one 
 knew better and earlier than Mr. Smith himself? He was walking 
 with his wife under his arm, say the witnesses: he should have walked 
 away with her, or hired a horse and rode to Georgetown, says the 
 right honourable Secretary. Why, this would have been, at the least, 
 only doing what was manifestly superfluous, and, because superfluous, 
 ridiculous. But in the feeling which then prevailed; in the irritation
 
 416 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE, 
 
 of men's minds; in (he exasperation to wards himself, which, I am sorry 
 to say, had been too plainly manifested; I believe such a folly would 
 not have been considered as superfluous only: he would have been 
 asked, " Why are you meddling? what are you interfering about? keep 
 you quiet at your own house: if you are indeed a peaceable missionary, 
 don't enter into quarrels you have no concern in, or busy yourself with 
 other people's matters." Answers of that kind he had received before: 
 rebuffs had been given him of a kind which might induce him to take 
 an opposite course: not a fortnight previous to that very night he had 
 been so treated. I, for one, am not the man to marvel that he kept 
 himself still at his house, instead of going forth to tell tales which all 
 the world knew, and to give information, extremely unlike that which 
 the evidence would have communicated to the honourable Under 
 Secretary, if he had read it correctly; and to the member for Peterbo- 
 rough, if he had read it at all. It would have informed no one, because 
 all knew it. 
 
 But, says the right honourable gentleman,* why did not this mis- 
 sionary, if he would not fly to the destruction of his friends upon some 
 vague surmise if he would not make haste to denounce his flock upon 
 rumour or suspicion if he would not tell that which he did not know; 
 if he would not communicate a treason which probably had no exist- 
 ence, which certainly did not to his knowledge exist if he would not 
 disclose secrets which no man had entrusted to him if he would not 
 betray a confidence which no mortal had ever reposed in him (for 
 that is the state of the case up to the delivery of Jacky Reed's 
 letter; that is the precise state of the case at the time of receiving the 
 letter;) if he did not please to do all these impossibilities, there was 
 one possibility, it seems, and that mentioned for the first time to-night 
 (I know not when it was discovered,) which he might do: Why did 
 he not go forth into the field, when the Negroes were all there, rebel- 
 lious and in arms some arrested and rescued, others taken by the 
 insurgents and carried back into the woods why did he not proceed 
 where he could not take a step, according to the same authority that 
 suggests such an operation, without seeing multitudes of martial slaves; 
 why not, in this favourable state of things, at this very opportune 
 moment, at a crisis so auspicious for the exertions of a peaceful mis- 
 sionary among his enraged flock why not greedily seize such a 
 moment, to reason with them, to open his Bible to" them, to exhort 
 them, and instruct them, and catechize them, and, in fine, take all those 
 steps for having pursued which, in a season of profound tranquillity, he 
 was brought into peril of his life! wherefore not now renew that 
 teaching and preaching to them, for which, and for nothing else, he 
 was condemned to death, his exhausted frame subjected to lingering 
 torture, and his memory blighted with the name of traitor and felon! 
 Why, he was wise in not doing this! If he had made any such un- 
 seasonable and wild attempts, we might now think it only folly, and 
 might be disposed to laugh at the ridiculous project; but at that moment 
 
 * Mr. Canning.
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 417 
 
 of excitement, when the exasperation of his enemies had waxed to 
 such a height as lie knew it to have reached against him, and men's 
 minds were in a state of feverish alarm that made each one deem every 
 other he met his foe, and all who were in any manner of way con- 
 nected with plantations fancied they saw the very head and ringleader 
 of their common enemy in whatever bore the shape of a Christian pas- 
 tor (this Mr. Smith knew, independent of Ins personal experience, 
 independent of experience the most recent experience within the last 
 fortnight from the time when such courses are pointed out as rational, 
 nay, obvious and necessary;) but if, with only his own general know- 
 ledge of the state of society, the recollection of what had happened to 
 him in former times, and the impression which every page of his journal 
 proves to have been the genuine result of all he saw daily passing be- 
 fore his eyes if, in such a crisis, and with this knowledge, he had 
 fared forth upon the hopeless errand of preaching peace, when the 
 cutlasses of the insurgents were gleaming in his eyes, I say he would 
 not merely have exposed himself to the just imputation of insanity 
 from the candid and reflecting, but have encountered, and for that 
 reason encountered the persecutions of those who now, with mon- 
 strous inconsistency, blame him for not employing his pastoral authority 
 to restrain a rebellious multitude, and who pursued him to the death 
 for teaching his flock the lessons of forbearance and peace! 
 
 Sir, I am told that it is unjust to censure the court martial so vehe- 
 mently as I propose doing in the motion before you: and really to hear 
 gentlemen talk of it, one would imagine it charged enormous crimes 
 in direct terms. Some have argued as if murder were plainly im- 
 puted to the court: They have confounded together the different parts 
 of the argument urged in support of the motion, and then imported 
 into the motion itself that confusion, the work of their own brains. 
 But even if the accusations of which they complain had been pre- 
 ferred in the speeches that introduced or supported the proposition, 
 could anything be conceived more grossly absurd than to decide as if 
 you were called upon to adopt or reject the speeches, and not the 
 motion, which alone is the subject of the vole? Truly this would be 
 a mode of reasoning surpassing anything the most unfair and illogical 
 that I have ever heard attempted even in this place, where I have cer- 
 tainly heard at times reasonings not to be met with elsewhere. The 
 motion conveys a censure, I admit; but in my humble opinion, a tem- 
 perate and a mitigated censure. The law has been broken; justice 
 lias been outraged. Whoso believes not in this, let him not vote for 
 the motion. But whosoever believes that a gross breach of the law 
 has been committed; that a flagrant violation of justice has been per- 
 petrated; is it asking too much at the hands of that man, to demand 
 that he honestly speak his mind, and record his sentiments by his 
 vote? In former times, be it remembered, this House of Parliament 
 has not scrupled to express, in words far more stringent than any you 
 are now required to adopt, its sense of proceedings displaying the 
 triumph of oppression over the law. When there came before the 
 legislature a case remarkable in itself; for its consequences yet moro
 
 418 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 
 
 momentous; resembling the present in many points; to the very letter 
 in some things resembling it I mean, the trial of Sydney did our 
 illustrious predecessors within these walls shrink back from the honest 
 and manly declaration of their opinion in words suited to the occasion, 
 and screen themselves behind such tender phrases as are to-night 
 resorted to, " Don't be too violent pray be civil do be gentle 
 there has only been a man murdered, nothing more a total breach 
 of all law to be sure; an utter contempt, no doubt, of justice, and 
 everything like it, in form as well as in substance; but that's all ; 
 surely, then, you will be meek, and patient, and forbearing, as were 
 the Demerara judges to this poor missionary; against whom, if some- 
 what was done, a great deal more was meditated than they durst 
 openly perpetrate; but who, being condemned to die in despite of law 
 and evidence, was only put to death by slow and wanton seventy!" 
 In those days no such language was holden. On that memorable 
 occasion, plain terms were not deemed too strong when severe truth 
 was to be recorded. The word "murder" was used because the 
 deed of blood had been done. The word " murder " was not reck- 
 oned too uncourtly in a place where decorum is studied somewhat 
 more scrupulously than even here: on the journals of the other House 
 stands the appointment of Lords Committees, " to inquire of the 
 advisers and prosecutors of the murder of Lord Russell and Colonel 
 Sydney;" and their lordships make a report, upon which the statute 
 is passed to reverse those execrable attainders. I will not enter into 
 any detailed comparison of the two cases, which might be thought 
 fanciful; but I would remind the House, that no legal evidence was 
 given of Mr. Smith's handwriting in his journal, any more than of 
 Sydney's in his manuscript Discourse on Government, Every lawyer, 
 who reads the trial, must at once perceive this. The witness who 
 swears to Mr. Smith's hand, cannot say that he ever saw him write; 
 and when asked how he knows, the court say "that question is un- 
 necessary, because he has said he knows the hand!" although all the 
 ground of knowledge he had stated was having received letters from 
 him, without a syllable of having afterwards seen him to ascertain that 
 they were his, or having written in answer to them, or otherwise acted 
 upon them. Now, in Sydney's case there was an endorsement on 
 bills of exchange produced, and those bills had been paid; neverthe- 
 less, Parliament pronounced his conviction murder, for this, among 
 other reasons, that such evidence had been received. The outrageous 
 contempt of the most established rules of evidence, to which I am 
 alluding, was indeed committed by a court of fourteen military officers, 
 ignorant of the law; but, that their own deficiencies might be sup- 
 plied, they had joined with them the first legal authority of the colony. 
 Why then did they not avail themselves of Mr. President Wray's 
 knowledge and experience? Why did they overrule by their num- 
 bers what he MUST have laid down to them as the law? I agree en- 
 tirely with my honourable and learned friend* that the President must 
 
 * Mr, Scarlett.
 
 THE MISSIONARY S CASE. 419 
 
 have protested strenuously against such proceedings. J take for 
 granted, as a matter of course, that he resisted them to the utmost of 
 his power. My honourable friend and I have too good an opinion 
 of that learned judge, and are too well persuaded of his skill in our 
 common profession, to have a doubt in our minds of his being as much 
 astonished at those strange things as any man who now hears of them; 
 and far more shocked, because they were done before his eyes; and, 
 though really in spite of his efforts to prevent them, yet clothed in out- 
 ward appearance with the sanction of his authority. 
 
 In Sydney's case, another ground of objection at the trial and of 
 reprobation ever afterwards, was the seizure and production of his 
 private manuscript, which he described, in eloquent and touching 
 terms, as containing " sacred truths and hints that came into his mind, 
 and were designed for the cultivation of his understanding, nor intended 
 to be as yet made public." Recollect the seizure and production of 
 the missionary's journal; to which the same objection and the same 
 reprobation is applicable; with this only difference, that Sydney 
 avowed the intention of eventually publishing his Discourse, while 
 Mr. Smith's papers were prepared to meet no mortal eye but his own. 
 In how many other particulars do these two memorable trials agree! 
 The Preamble of the Act rescinding the attainder seems almost framed 
 to describe the proceedings of the court at Dcmerara. Admission of 
 hearsay evidence; allowing matters to be law for one party, and re- 
 fusing to the other the benefit of the same law; wresting the evidence 
 against the prisoner; permitting proof by comparison of hands all 
 these enormities are to be found in both causes. 
 
 But, sir, the demeanour of the judges after the close of the proceed- 
 ings, I grieve to say it, completes the parallel. The Chief Justice who 
 presided, and whom a profligate government made the instrument of 
 Sydney's destruction, it is stated in our most common books Collins, 
 and I believe also Rapin " when he allowed the account of the trial 
 to be published, carefully made such alterations and suppressions as 
 might show his own conduct in a more favourable light." That judge 
 was Jeffries, of immortal memory! who will be known to all ages as 
 the chief not certainly of ignorant and inexperienced men, for he 
 was an accomplished lawyer, and of undoubted capacity but as the 
 chief and head of unjust, and cruel, and corrupt judges! There, in 
 that place, shall Jeffries stand hateful to all posterity, while England 
 stands; but there he would not have stood, and his name have come 
 down to us with far other and less appropriate distinction, if our fore- 
 fathers, who sat in this House, had consented to fritter away the ex- 
 pression of their honest indignation, to miligate the severity of that 
 record which should carry their hatred of injustice to their children's 
 children if, instead of deeming it their most sacred duty, their highest 
 glory, to speak the truth of privileged oppressors, careless whom it 
 might strike, or whom offend, they had only studied how to give the 
 least annoyance, to choose the most courtly language, to hold the 
 kindest and most conciliating tone towards men who showed not a 
 gleam of kindness, conciliation, courtesy, no, nor bare justice, nor any
 
 420 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 
 
 semblance or form of justice, when they had their victim under their 
 dominion. Therefore it is that I cannot agree to this previous ques- 
 tion. Rather let me be met by a direct negative: it is the manlier 
 course. I could have wished that the government had still " screwed 
 up their courage to the sticking-place," where for a moment it perched 
 the first night of the debate, when by the honourable gentleman from 
 the Colonial Department we were told that he could not consent to 
 meet this motion in any way but the most triumphant a decided 
 negative. 
 
 Mr. Wilmot Horton. "No!" 
 
 Mr. Brougham. I beg the honourable member's pardon. I was 
 not present at the time, but took my account of what passed from 
 others, and from the usual channels of intelligence. I understood that 
 he had given the motion a direct negative. 
 
 Mr. Wilmot Horton. " I said no such thing; I said I should give 
 my dissent to the motion without any qualification." 
 
 Mr. Brougham. Sir, I was not bred up in the Dutch schools, nor 
 have practised in the courts of Demerara; and I confess my inability 
 to draw the nice distinction, so acutely taken by the honourable gen- 
 tleman, between a direct negative and a dissent without any qualifi- 
 cation. In my plain judgment, unqualified dissent is that frame of 
 mind which begets a direct negative. Well, then, call it which you 
 will, I prefer, as more intelligible and more consistent, the direct nega- 
 tive, or unqualified dissent. What is the meaning of this " previous 
 question," which the right honourable Secretary* has to-night substi- 
 tuted for it? Plainly this: there is much to blame on both sides; and, 
 for fear of withholding justice from either party, we must do injustice 
 to both. That is exactly the predicament in which the right honour- 
 able gentleman's proposition would place the government and the 
 House, with respect to West Indian interests. 
 
 But what can be the reason of all this extraordinary tenderness 
 towards the good men of Demerara! Let us only pause for a mo- 
 ment, and consider what it can mean. How striking a contrast does 
 this treatment of those adversaries of his Majesty's ministers afford to 
 the reception which we oftentimes meet with from them here! I have 
 seen, in my short experience, many motions opposed by the gentlemen 
 opposite, and rejected by the House, merely because they were ac- 
 companied by speeches unpalatable to them and their majorities. I 
 have seen measures of the greatest importance, and to which no other 
 objection whatever was made, flung out, only because propounded by 
 opposition men, and recommended by what were called factious argu- 
 ments. I remember myself once moving certain resolutions upon the 
 commercial policy of the country, all of which have, I think, either 
 been since adopted by the ministers (and I thank them for it,) or are 
 in the course of being incorporated with the law of the state. At the 
 time, there was no objection urged to the propositions themselves 
 indeed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer professed his entire concur- 
 
 * Mr. Canning.
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 421 
 
 rcncc with my doctrines and as I then said I had much rather see 
 his good works than hear his profession of faith, I am now happy that 
 he has appealed to this test of his sincerity, and given me what I asked, 
 the best proof that the government entirely approved of the mea- 
 sures I recommended. But, upon what grounds were they resisted 
 at the time? Why, nine parts in ten of the arguments I was met by, 
 consisted of complaints that I had introduced them with a factious 
 speech, intermixed them with party topics, and combined with the 
 commercial part of the subject a censure upon the foreign policy of the 
 government, which has since been, I think, also well-nigh given up 
 by themselves. Now, then, how have the Demerara men entitled 
 themselves to the especial protection and favour of those same minis- 
 ters? Have they shown any signal friendship, or courtesy, or decent 
 respect, towards his Majesty's government? Far enough from it. I 
 believe the gentlemen opposite have very seldom had to bear such 
 violence of attack from this side of the House, bad though we be, as 
 from their Guiana friends. I suspect they have not in any quarter 
 had to encounter so much bitterness of opposition as from their new 
 favourites, whom they are so fearful of displeasing. Little tender- 
 ness, or indeed forbearance, have they shown towards the government 
 which anxiously cherishes them. They have held public meetings to 
 threaten all but separation; they have passed a vote of censure upon 
 one minister by name; and, that none might escape, another upon the 
 whole administration in a mass; and the latest accounts of their pro- 
 ceedings left them contriving plans in the most factious spirit, in the 
 very teeth of the often-avowed policy of the government, for the pur- 
 pose of prohibiting all missions and expelling all missionaries from the 
 settlement. Sir, missions and missionaries may divide the opinions of 
 men in any other part of our dominions except the slave colonies, and 
 the most opposite sentiments may honestly and conscientiously be en- 
 tertained upon their expediency; but in those countries it is not the 
 question, whether you will have missionary teachers or no, but, whe- 
 ther you will have teachers at all or no. The question is not, shall 
 the Negroes be taught by missionaries, but, shall they be taught at all? 
 For it is the unvarying result of all men's experience in those parts, 
 members of the Establishment as well as Dissenters nay, the most 
 absolute opinions on record, and the most strongly expressed, have 
 come from Churchmen that there is but this one way practicable of 
 attempting the conversion of these poor heathens. With what jea- 
 lousy, then, ought we to regard any efforts, but especially by the con- 
 stituted authorities who bore a part in those proceedings, to frustrate 
 the positive orders for the instruction of the slaves, not only given by 
 his Majesty's government, but recommended by this House, a far 
 higher authority as it is, higher still as it might be, if it but dared now 
 and then to have a will of its own, and, upon questions of paramount 
 importance, to exercise fearlessly an unbiassed judgment? To obtain 
 the interposition of this authority for the protection of those who alone 
 will, or can, teach the Negroes, is one object of the motion upon which 
 I shall now take the sense of the House. The rest of it relates to the 
 VOL. i. 3G
 
 42.2 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 
 
 case of the individual who has been persecuted. The right honoura- 
 ble gentleman seems much disposed to quarrel with the title of mar- 
 tyr, which has been given him. For my own part, I have no fault to 
 find with it; because I deem that man to deserve the name, as in 
 former times he would have reaped the honours of martyrdom, who 
 willingly suffers for conscience. Whether I agree with him or not in 
 his tenets, I respect his sincerity, I admire his zeal; and when, through 
 that zeal, a Christian minister has been brought to die the death, I 
 would have his name honoured and holden in everlasting remem- 
 brance. His blood cries from the ground but not for vengeance! 
 He expired, not imprecating curses upon his enemies, but praying for 
 those who had brought him to an untimely grave. It cries aloud for 
 justice to his memory, and for protection to those who shall tread in 
 his footsteps, and tempering their enthusiasm by discretion; uniting 
 with their zeal knowledge; forbearance with firmness; patience to 
 avoid giving offence, with courage to meet oppression, and to resist 
 when the powers of endurance are exhausted shall prove themselves 
 worthy to follow him, and worthy of the cause for which he suffered. 
 If theirs is a holy duty, it is ours to shield them, in discharging it, from 
 that injustice which has persecuted the living, and has sought to blast 
 the memory of the dead. 
 
 Sir, it behoves this House to give a memorable lesson to the men 
 who have so demeaned themselves. Speeches in a debate will be of 
 little avail. Arguments on either side neutralize each other. Plain 
 speaking on the one part, met by ambiguous expressions half cen- 
 sure, half acquittal, betraying the wish to give up, but with an attempt 
 at an equivocal defence will carry out to the West Indies a motley 
 aspect; conveying no definite or intelligible expression, incapable of 
 commanding respect, and leaving it extremely doubtful whether those 
 things, which all men are agreed in reprobating, have actually been 
 disapproved of or not. Upon this occasion, most eminently, a discus- 
 sion is nothing, unless followed up by a vote to promulgate with au- 
 thority what is admitted to be universally felt. That vote is called 
 for, in tenderness to the West Indians themselves in fairness to those 
 other colonies which have not shared the guilt of Demcrara. Out of 
 a just regard to the interests of the West Indian body, who, I rejoice 
 to say, have kept aloof from this question, as if desirous to escape the 
 shame when they bore no part in the crime, this lesson must now be 
 taught by the voice of Parliament, that the mother country will at 
 length make her authority respected; that the rights of property are 
 sacred, but the rules of justice paramount and inviolable; that the 
 claims of the slave owner are admitted, but the dominion of Parlia- 
 ment indisputable; that we are sovereign alike over the white and the 
 black; and though we may for a season, and out of regard for the 
 interests of both, suffer men to hold property in their fellow creatures, 
 we never, for even an instant of time, forget that they are men, and 
 the fellow subjects of their masters; that, if those masters shall still 
 hold the same perverse course if, taught by no experience, w r arncd 
 by no auguries, scared by no menaces from Parliament, or from the
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S CASE. 423 
 
 Crown administering those powers which Parliament invoked it to 
 put forth but, blind alike to the duties, the interests, and the perils 
 of their situation, they rush headlong through infamy to destruction; 
 breaking promise after promise made to delude ns; leaving pledge 
 after pledge unredeemed, extorted by the pressure of the passing oc- 
 casion; or only, by laws passed to be a dead letter, for ever giving 
 such an elusory performance as adds mockery to breach of faith; yet 
 a little delay; yet a little longer of this unbearable trifling with the 
 commands of the parent state, and she will stretch out her arm, in 
 mercy, not in anger, to those deluded men themselves; exert at last 
 her undeniable authority; vindicate the just rights, and restore the 
 tarnished honour of the English name!* 
 
 * It was in this memorable debate that Mr. Wilberforce spoke in Parliament for 
 the last time. His journals show how intensely he felt on the subject. The mo- 
 tion was lost, and the previous question carried by 193 to 146,
 
 SPEECH 
 
 ON 
 
 NEGRO SLAVERY. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 
 JULY 13, 1830. 
 
 [The following Speech was delivered on the 13th of July 1830. It is believed to 
 have mainly contributed towards. Mr. Brougham's election as member for the 
 county of York, which took place a few weeks after.] 
 
 SIR, In rising to bring before the House a subject more momen- 
 tous, in the eyes both of this country and of the world, than any that 
 has occupied our attention during the whole of a long protracted ses- 
 sion, I am aware that I owe some apology for entering upon it at so 
 late a day. I know, too, that I am blamed in many quarters, for not 
 postponing it till another season. But the apology which I am about 
 to offer is, not for bringing it forward to-day, but for having delayed 
 it so long; and I feel that I should be indeed without excuse, that I 
 should stand convicted of a signal breach of public duty, to the cha- 
 racter and the honour of the House, to the feelings and principles of 
 the people, nay, to the universal feelings of mankind at large, by what- 
 ever names they may be called, into whatever families distributed, if 
 I had not an ample defence to urge for having so long put off the agi- 
 tation of this great question. The occurrences which happened at the 
 commencement of the session, and the matters of pressing interest 
 which have just attended its close, must plead my justification. 
 
 Early in the year I had hoped that the government would redeem 
 the pledges which they gave me last session, and which then stayed 
 my steps. I had expected to have the satisfaction of seconding a 
 measure propounded by the ministers of the Crown for improving the 
 administration of justice in the Colonies, and especially for amending 
 the law which excludes the testimony of slaves. That those expecta- 
 tions have been frustrated, that those pledges remain unredeemed, I 
 may lament; but in fairness I am bound to say I cannot charge this 
 as matter of severe blame on the government, because I know the ob-
 
 NEGRO SLAVERY. 425 
 
 stacles of a financial nature, which have stood in the way of inten- 
 tions sincerely entertained, to provide a pure and efficient system of 
 judicature for the West India Islands. Until I saw that no such re- 
 forms could he looked for in that high quarter, I was precluded from 
 undertaking the suhject, lest my etforts might mar the work in hands 
 far more able to execute it. 
 
 This is my defence for now addressing you at the end of the parlia- 
 mentary year. But to imagine that I can hold my peace a moment 
 longer, that I can suffer the Parliament to be prorogued, and above all 
 to be dissolved, and the country to be assembled for the choice of new 
 representives, without calling on the House for a solemn pledge, which 
 may bind its successors to do their duty by the most defenceless and 
 wretched portion of their fellow subjects, is so manifestly out of the 
 question, that I make no apology for the lateness of the day, and dis- 
 regard even the necessary absence of many fast friends of the cause, 
 and a general slackness of attendance, incident to the season, as 
 attested by the state of these benches, which might well dissuade me 
 from going on. And now, after the question of Colonial Slavery has for 
 so many years been familiar to the House, and I fear still more familiar 
 to the country, I would fain hope that I may dispense with the irk- 
 some task of dragging you through its details, from their multiplicity 
 so overwhelming, from their miserable nature so afllicting. But I am 
 aware that in the threshold of the scene, and to scare me from entering 
 upon it, there stands the phantom of colonial independence, resisting 
 parliamentary interference, fatiguing the ear with the thrice-told tale 
 of their ignorance who see from afar off, and pointing to the fatal issue 
 of the American war. There needs but one steady glance to brush 
 all such spectres away. That the colonial legislatures have rights 
 that their privileges are to be respected that their province is not to 
 be lightly invaded that the Parliament of the mother country is not, 
 without necessity, to trench on their independence no man more than 
 myself is willing to allow. But when those local assemblies utterly 
 neglect their first duties when we see them, from the circumstances 
 of their situation, prevented from acting struggling in these trammels 
 for an independent existence exhausted in the effort to stand alone, 
 and to move one step wholly unable when at any rate we wait for 
 years, and perceive that they advance not by a hair's breadth, either 
 because they cannot, or because they dare not, or because they will 
 not then to contend that we should not interfere that we should fail 
 in our duty because they do not do theirs nay, that we have no right 
 to act, because they have no power or inclination to obey us would 
 be, not an argument, but an abomination, a gross insult to Parliament, 
 a mnckcry of our privileges for I trust that we too have some left 
 a shameful abandonment of our duty, and a portentous novelty in the 
 history of the Parliament, the plantations, and the country. 
 
 Talk not of the American contest, and the triumph of the colonists. 
 
 Who that has read the sad history of that event (and I believe among 
 
 the patriarchs of this cau-e whom I now address there are sonic who 
 
 an remember that disgrace of our councils and our anus) will say,
 
 426 NEGRO SLAVERY. 
 
 that either the Americans triumphed or we quailed on one inch of the 
 ground upon which the present controversy stands? Ignorance the 
 most gross, or inattention the most heedless, can alone explain, but 
 cannot at all justify, the use of such a topic. Be it remembered and 
 to set at rest the point of right, I shall say no more let it not once be 
 forgotten, that the supremacy of the mother country never for an in- 
 stant was surrendered at any period of that calamitous struggle. Nay, 
 in the whole course of it, a question of her supremacy never once was 
 raised; the whole dispute was rigorously confined to the power of 
 taxing. All that we gave up, as we said voluntarily, as the Ameri- 
 cans more truly said, by compulsion, was the power to tax; and by 
 the very act which surrendered this power, we solemnly, deliberately, 
 and unequivocally reasserted the right of the Parliament to give laws 
 to the plantations in all other respects whatever. Thus speaks the 
 record of history and the record of our statute-book. But were both 
 history and the laws silent, there is a fact so plain and striking, that it 
 would of itself be quite sufficient to establish the doctrine of parlia- 
 mentary supremacy. 
 
 I believe it may safely be affirmed, that on neither side of the water 
 was there a man more distinguished for steady devotion to the cause 
 of colonial independence, or who made his name more renowned by 
 firm resistance to the claims of the mother country, than Mr. Burke. 
 He was, in truth, throughout that memorable struggle, the great leader 
 in Parliament against the infatuated ministry, whose counsels ended 
 in severing the empire; and far from abating in his opposition as the 
 contest advanced, he sacrificed to those principles the favour of his 
 constituents, and was in consequence obliged to withdraw from the 
 representation of Bristol, which, till then, he had held. His speech on 
 the occasion of his retirement reaffirms the doctrines of American in- 
 dependence. But neither then, nor at any other time, did he ever 
 think of denying the general legislative supremacy of Parliament; he 
 only questioned the right of taxing the unrepresented colonies. But 
 another fact must at once carry conviction to every mind. During the 
 heat of the controversy, he employed himself in framing a code for the 
 government of our sugar colonies. It was a bill to be passed into a 
 law by the legislature of the mother country; and it has fortunately 
 been preserved among his invaluable papers. There is no minute 
 detail into which its provisions do not enter. The rights of the slave 
 the duties of the master the obligation to feed and clothe the re- 
 striction of the power of coercion and punishment all that concerns 
 marriage and education and religious instruction all that relates to 
 the hours of labour and rest everything is minutely provided for, 
 with an abundance of regulation which might well be deemed exces- 
 sive, were not the subject that unnatural state of things which subjects 
 man to the dominion of his fellow-creatures, and which can only be 
 rendered tolerable by the most profuse enactment of checks and con- 
 trols. This measure of most ample interference was devised by the 
 most illustrious champion of colonial rights, the most jealous watch- 
 man of English encroachments. With his own hand he sketched the
 
 NEGRO SLAVERY. 427 
 
 bold outline; with his own hand he filled up its details; with his own 
 hand, long after the American contest had terminated, after the con- 
 troversy on Negro freedom had begun, and when his own principles, 
 touching the slave trade arid slavery, had bent before certain West 
 India prejudices, communicated by the party of planters in Paris, with 
 whom lie made common cause on French revolutionary politics, 
 even then, instead of rejecting all idea of interference with the rights 
 of the colonial assemblies, he delivered over his plan of a slave code to 
 Mr. Dundas, the Secretary for the Colonies, for the patronage and 
 adoption of Mr. Pitt and himself. I offer this fact as a striking proof 
 that it is worse than a jest, it is an unpardonable delusion, to fancy 
 that there ever has existed a doubt of the right of Parliament to give 
 the colonies laws. 
 
 But I am told, that, granting the right to be ours, we ought to shrink 
 from the exercise of it, when it would lead to an encroachment upon 
 the sacred rights of property. I desire the House to mark the short 
 and plain issue to which I am willing to bring this matter. I believe 
 there is no man, either in or out of the profession to which I have the 
 honour of belonging, and which, above all others, inculcates upon its 
 members an habitual veneration for civil rights, less disposed than I 
 am, lightly to value those rights, or rashly to inculcate a disregard of 
 them. But that renowned profession has taught me another lesson 
 also; it has imprinted on my mind the doctrine which all men, the 
 learned and the unlearned, feel to be congenial with the human mind, 
 and to gather strength with its growth that by a law above and prior 
 to all the laws of human lawgivers, for it is the law of God there are 
 some things which cannot be holden in property, and above everything 
 else, that man can have no property in his fellow-creature. 
 
 But I willingly avoid those heights of moral argument, where, if we 
 go in search of first principles, we see eternal fogs reign, and " find no 
 end, in wandering mazes lost." I had rather seek the humbler regions, 
 and approach the level plain, where all men see clear, where their 
 judgments agree, and common feelings knit their hearts together; and 
 standing on that general level, I ask, what is the right which one man 
 claims over the person of another, as if he were a chattel, and one of 
 the beasts that perish? Is this that kind of property which claims 
 universal respect, and is clothed in the hearts of all with a sanctity that 
 makes it inviolable? I resist the claim; I deny the title; as a lawyer 
 I demur to the declaration of the right; as a man I set up a law supe- 
 rior in point of antiquity, higher in point of authority, than any which 
 men have framed the law of nature; and, if you appeal from that, I 
 set up the law of the Christian dispensation, which holds all men equal, 
 and commands that you treat every man as a brother! Talk to me 
 not of such monstrous pretensions being decreed by Acts of Parliament, 
 and recognised by treaties! do bark a quarter of a century to a kin- 
 dred contest, when a long and painful struggle ended in an immortal 
 triumph. The self-same arguments were urged in defence of the 
 slave trade. Its vindication was rested upon the rights of property, as 
 established by laws and treaties; the ri^ht to trade in men was held
 
 428 NEGRO SLAVERY. 
 
 to be as clear then, as the right to hold men in properly is held to be 
 clear now. For twenty-five years, I am ashamed to repeat, for twenty- 
 five years, to the lasting disgrace of the Parliament, the African slave 
 traffic was thus defended; and that which it was then maintained every 
 one had a right to do, is now denounced by our laws as piracy, and 
 whoso doeth it shall surely die the death of a felon. 
 
 But I am next told, that, be the right as it may, the facts are against 
 me; that the theory may be with those who object to slavery, but the 
 practice is in favour of the system. The Negroes are well off, it seems; 
 they are inured to the state in which they have been born and grown 
 up; they are happy and contented, and we shall only hurt them by 
 changing their condition, which the peasantry of England are desired 
 to regard with envy. I will not stoop to answer such outrageous asser- 
 tions by facts or by reasons. I will not insult your understanding, by 
 proving, that no slave can taste happiness or comfort; that where a 
 man is at the nod of another, he can know nothing of real peace or 
 repose. But I will at once appeal to two tests; to these I shall confine 
 myself, satisfied that if they fail to decide the question, I may resort in. 
 vain to any argument which philosophers can admit, or political econ- 
 omists entertain, or men of ordinary common sense handle. The two 
 tests or criteria of happiness among any people, which I will now 
 resort to, are the progress of population, and the amount of crime. 
 These, but the first especially, are, of all others, the most safely to be 
 relied on. Every one who has studied the philosophy of human na- 
 ture, and every one who lias cultivated statesman-like wisdom, which 
 indeed is only that philosophy reduced to practice, must admit, that 
 the principle implanted in our nature, which ensures the continuance 
 of the species, is so powerful that nothing can check its operation but 
 some calamitous state of suffering, which reverses the natural order of 
 things. Wherever, then, we see the numbers of men stationary, much 
 more when we perceive them decreasing, we may rest assured that 
 there is some fatal malady, some fundamental vice in the community, 
 which makes head against the most irresistible of all the impulses of 
 our physical constitution. Now, look to the history of the black popu- 
 lation, both free and slave, in the Antilles. In the British islands, 
 including Barbadoes, on a population of 670,000 slaves, there was a 
 decrease of 31,500 in the six years which elapsed between ISIS and 
 1824; in Jamaica alone, upon the number of 330,000, a decrease of 
 between 8,000, and 9,000. But not so with the free coloured men; 
 although placed in circumstances exceedingly unfavourable to increase 
 of numbers, yet such is the natural fruitfnlness of the Negro race that 
 they rapidly multiplied. The Maroons doubled between 1749 and 
 17S2; and when great part of them were removed after the rebellion 
 of 1796, those who remained increased in six years, from 1810 to 1S16, 
 no less than eighteen per cent.: and in five years, from 1S16 to 1S21, 
 fourteen per cent. In North America, where they are better fed, the 
 Negroes have increased in thirty years no less than 1 30 per cent. Look 
 next to Trinidad: in four years, from 1S25 to 1S29, the slaves have 
 fallen off from 23,117 to 22,436, notwithstanding a considerable impor-
 
 NEGRO SLAVERY. 429 
 
 tation under an order in council, being a decrease of at least a thirty- 
 fourth, but probably of a twentieth. Hut what has happened to the 
 same race, and circumstanced alilco as to climate, soil, food in short, 
 everything save liberty? Nature lias with them upheld her rights: 
 her first great law has been obeyed; the passions and the vigour of 
 man have had their course unrestrained; and the increase of his num- 
 bers has attested his freedom. They have risen in the same four years 
 from 13,995 to 16,412, or at a rate which would double their numbers 
 iu twenty years; the greatest rate at which population is, in any cir- 
 cumstances, known to increase. There cannot be a more appalling 
 picture presented to the reflecting mind than that of a people decreas- 
 ing in numbers. To him who can look beyond the abstract numbers, 
 whose eye is not confined to the mere tables and returns of population, 
 but ranges over the miseries of which such a diminution is the infalli- 
 ble symptom; it offers a view of all the forms of wretchedness, suffer- 
 ing in every shape, privations in unlimited measure whatever is most 
 contrary to the nature of human beings, most alien to their habits, most 
 adverse to their happiness and comfort all beginning in slavery, the 
 state most unnatural to man; consummated through various channels 
 in his degradation, and leading to one common end, the grave. Show 
 me but the simple fact, that the people in any country are regularly 
 decreasing, so as in half a century to be extinct; and I want no other 
 evidence that their lot is that of the bitterest wretchedness; nor will 
 any other facts convince me that their general condition can be favour- 
 able or mild. The second general test to which I would resort for the 
 purpose of trying the state of any community, without the risk of those 
 deceptions to which particular facts are liable, is the number of crimes 
 committed. In Trinidad, I find that the slaves belonging to planta- 
 tions, in number 16,580, appear, by the records printed, to have been 
 punished in two years for 11,131 offences, that is to say, deducting the 
 number of infants incapable of committing crimes, every slave had 
 committed some offence in the course of those two years. It is true 
 that the bulk of those offences, 7611, were connected with their con- 
 dition of bondage refusing to work, absconding from the estate, inso- 
 lence to the owner or overseer, all incidental to their sad condition, but 
 all visited with punishment betokening its accompanying debasement. 
 Nevertheless, other crimes were not wanting: 713 were punished for 
 theft, or above 350 in a year, on a number of about 12,000, deducting 
 persons incapacitated by infancy, age, or sickness, from being the sub- 
 jects of punishment. Let any one consider what this proportion would 
 give in England: it would amount to 3 ~>0,000 persons punished in one 
 year for larceny. In Herbice, on a population of 21,000 plantation 
 slaves, there were 9000 punishments; no record being kept of those in 
 plantations of six slaves or under: and in Uemerara, of 61,000, there 
 were 20,567 punished, of whom S161 were women. 
 
 I cannot here withhold from thu House, the testimony of the Pro- 
 tector of Slaves to tht! happiness of their condition. I cannot," says 
 that judicious officer, " refrain from remarking on the contented appear- 
 ance of the Negroes; and, from the opportunities of judging which I
 
 430 NEGRO SLAVERY. 
 
 have, I think that generally they have every reason to be so." I 
 would not have this Protector placed in the condition of the very hap- 
 piest of this contented tribe, whose numbers are hourly lessening, and 
 whose lives are spent in committing crime and in receiving punish- 
 ments. No, not for a day would I punish his error in judgment, by 
 condemning him to taste the comforts which he describes, as they are 
 enjoyed by the luckiest of those placed under his protection. But such 
 testimony is not peculiar to this officer. Long before his protectorate 
 commenced, before he even came into this world of slavery and bliss, 
 of bondage and contentment, the like opinion had been pronounced in 
 favour of West Indian felicity. I hold in my hand the evidence of Lord 
 Rodney, who swore before the Privy Council that he never saw an 
 instance of cruel treatment, that in all the islands, " and," said his 
 lordship, "I know them all," the Negroes were better off in clothing, 
 lodging, and food, than the poor at home, and were never in any case 
 at all overworked. Admiral Barrington, rising in ardour of expression 
 as he advanced in knowledge, declares that he has often wished him- 
 self in the condition of the slaves. Neither would I take the gallant 
 Admiral at his rash word, sanctioned though it be by an oath. I would 
 not punish his temerity so severely as to consign him to a station, com- 
 pared with which he would in four-and-twenty hours have become 
 reconciled to the hardest fare in the most crazy bark that ever rocked 
 on the most perilous wave; or even to the lot which our English sea- 
 men are the least inured to the most disastrous combat that ever 
 lowered his flag in discomfiture and disgrace. But these officers con- 
 fined not their testimony to the condition of slavery ; they cast its pano- 
 ply around the slave trade itself. They were just as liberal in behalf 
 of the Guineaman, as of those whom his toils were destined to enrich. 
 They gave just as Arcadian a picture of the slaver's deck and hold, as 
 of the enviable fields whither she was fraught with a cargo of happy 
 creatures, designed by their felicitous destiny to become what are call- 
 ed the cultivators of those romantic regions. " The slaves on board 
 are comfortably lodged," says one gallant officer, "in rooms fitted up 
 for them." " They are amused with instruments of music: when tired 
 of music, they then go to games of chance." Let the inhabitants or 
 the frequenters of our club-houses hear this and envy those " famous 
 wits," to whom St. James's purlieus are " native or hospitable:" let 
 them cast a longing look on the superior felicity of their sable brethren 
 on the middle passage. They toil not, neither do they spin, yet have 
 they found for them all earthly indulgences; food and raiment for 
 nothing; music to charm the sense; and when, sated with such enjoy- 
 ment, the mind seeks a change, games of chance are kindly provided 
 by boon traffic to stimulate the lazy appetite. " The slaves," adds the 
 Admiral, "are indulged in all their little humours." Whether one of 
 these caprices might be to have themselves tied up from time to time, 
 and lacerated with a scourge, he has omitted to mention. " He had 
 frequently," he says, " seen them, and as happy as any of the crew, it 
 being the interest of the officers and men to make them so." But it 
 is Admiral Evans who puts the finishing stroke to this fairy picture.
 
 NEGRO SLAVERY. 431 
 
 ''The arrival of a Guineamnn," he says, " is known in the West In- 
 dies by the dancing and singing of the Negroes on board." 
 
 It is thus that these cargoes of merry, happy creatures, torn from 
 their families, their native fields, and their cottages, celebrate their 
 reaching the land of promise, and that their coming is distinguished 
 from the dismal landing of free English seamen, out of West India 
 traders, or other recepiacles of cruelty and wretchedness. But if all 
 the deductions of philosophy, and all the general indications of fact, 
 loudly prove the unalterable wretchedness of colonial slavery, where, 
 may it be asked, are the particular instances of its existence? Alas! 
 there is no want of these: but I will only cull out a few, dealing pur- 
 posely with the mass rather by sample than by breaking its foul bulk. 
 I shall illustrate, by a few examples, the effects of slavery in commu- 
 nities to the exertions of which we are bid to look for the mitigation 
 and final extinction of that horrid condition. 
 
 A certain Reverend Thomas Wilson Bridges was charged with an 
 offence of the deepest dye. A slave girl had been ordered to dress a 
 turkey for dinner, and the order having been disobeyed, he struck her 
 a violent blow, which caused her nose and mouth to flow with blood, 
 applying to her at the same time an oath, and a peculiarly coarse epi- 
 thet, highly unbecoming in a clergyman, and indeed in any man, as it 
 is the name most offensive to all womankind. He then commanded 
 two men to cut bamboo rods and point them for her punishment. She 
 was stripped of every article of dress, and flogged till the back part of 
 her, from the shoulders to the calves of the legs, was one mass of 
 lacerated flesh. She made her escape, and went to a magistrate. The 
 matter was brought before what is called a Council of Protection, 
 where, by a majority of fourteen to four, it was resolved that no fur- 
 ther proceedings should take place. The Secretary of State for tho 
 Colonies, however, thought otherwise, and in a dispatch, with no part 
 of which have I any fault to find, directed the evidence to be laid be- 
 fore the Attorney General. I understand that the reverend gentleman 
 has not been put on his trial. I hope I may have been misinformed : 
 I shall rejoice to find it so. I shall also be glad to find that then; is 
 no ground for the charge; although the man's servants, when ex- 
 amined, all admitted the severity of the flogging; and himself allowed 
 he had seen it, though he alleged he was not near, but could not deny 
 lie had heard the screams of the victim. This reverend Mr. Bridges 
 I happened to know by his other works, by those labours of slander 
 which have diversified the life of this minister of peace and truth. 
 For publishing one of these, a respectable bookseller has been con- 
 victed by a jury of his country; others have been passed over with 
 contempt by their illustrious object that venerable person, the great 
 patriarch of our cause, whose days are to be numbered by acts of be- 
 nevolence and of piety, whose whole life, and long may it he ex- 
 tended for his own glory and the good of his fellow-creatures! has 
 been devoted to the highest interests of religion and of chanty, who 
 might have hoped to pass on his holy path undisturbed by any one 
 calling himself a Christian pastor, even in a West Indian community.
 
 432 NEGRO SLAVERY. 
 
 The man, however, has so far succeeded, whether by the treatment of 
 liis slaves, or the defamation of Mr. Wilberforce, in recommending 
 himself to his fellow-citizens in Jamaica, that a great majority in the 
 Protecting Council forbade his conduct being inquired into. So vain 
 is it to expect from the owners of slaves any active execution of the 
 laws against slavery! And will you then trust those slave owners 
 with the making of such laws! Recollect the memorable warning 
 of Mr. Canning, given thirty years ago, and proved true by every 
 day's experience since. " Have a care how you leave to the owners 
 of slaves the task of making laws against slavery. While human na- 
 ture remains the same, they never can be trusted with it." 
 
 It is now six years since I called the attention of Parliament to one 
 of the most grievous outrages that ever was committed since the Ca- 
 ribbean Archipelago was peopled with Negro slaves the persecution 
 unto death of a Christian minister, for no other offence than preach- 
 ing the gospel of his master. I was then told, that no such wrong 
 would ever be done again. It was a single case, which never could 
 recur: at all events, the discussion in this House, and the universal 
 reprobation called forth, even from those who ha,d not sufficient inde- 
 pendence to give their voices for doing justice upon the guilty, would, 
 I was told, effectually secure the freedom of religious worship in 
 future. I was silenced by the majority of votes, but not convinced by 
 such reasons as these. And I now hold in my hand the proof that I 
 was right. It is a statement promulgated by a numerous and respect- 
 able body of sincere Christians with whom 1 differ both in religious 
 and political opinions, but in whose conduct, if there be anything which 
 I peculiarly blame, it is their disinclination to deviate from a bad habit 
 of passive obedience of taking all that is done by men in authority 
 to be right. They seem, however, now to be convinced that they 
 have carried this habit too far, and that the time is come when they 
 can no longer do their duty and hold their peace. The narrative 
 which they have given, confirmed by the conduct of the government 
 itself, is such as would have filled me with indignation had I read it 
 six years ago; but, after the warning voice so loudly raised in the de- 
 bates upon the Missionary Smith's murder, I gaze upon it astonished 
 and incredulous. The simple and affecting story is told by Mr. Orton, 
 a blameless and pious minister of the gospel in Jamaica. He first 
 alludes to the "daring attack made on the mission premises, at St. 
 Ann's Bay, on Christmas day, 1826," (the festival chosen by these 
 friends of the Established Church for celebrating their brotherly love 
 towards another sect.) " The attack," says lie, " was made by a 
 party of white persons, of the light company of militia, who were sta- 
 tioned at St. Ann's Bay as the Christmas guards. The plan appeared 
 to have been premeditated, and there remains but little doubt that the 
 design was murderous. A great number of balls were fired into the 
 chapel and house, fourteen of which I assisted to extract from various 
 parts of the building; and upon noticing particularly the direction, 
 and measuring the distance from which some of the shots must have 
 been fired, it appeared that Mr. and Mrs. Ratcliffe and their child
 
 NEGRO SLAVERY. 433 
 
 most narrowly escaped the fatal consequences which were no doubt 
 designed." All attempt to bring these criminals to justice failed, it 
 seems, for want of evidence a somewhat extraordinary instance in a 
 community calling itself civilized, that so many persons as must have 
 been concerned in it should all have escaped. In the course of the 
 next summer, Mr. Grimsdall, another clergyman of the same persua- 
 sion, was arrested twice; the second time for having preached at a 
 small place called Ocho Rios, in an unlicensed house, although a 
 license had been applied for and refused, contrary to the judgment of 
 the Gustos and another magistrate. He was flung into a noisome 
 dungeon, "such," says the narrative, "as no person in Great Britain 
 can have any conception of. Mis constitution, naturally strong, could 
 not sustain the attack he sunk under the oppression of these perse- 
 cutors, and the deleterious effects of confinement in a noxious prison; 
 and this devoted servant of God, after a painful sickness of sixteen 
 days, was delivered by death from the farther sufferings projected by 
 his unfeeling persecutors. He died the 15th day of December 1827." 
 Mr. Whitehouse, too, was a preacher of the gospel, and consequently 
 an object of persecution. In the summer of 1S2S, he was seized and 
 carried before a magistrate, accused of having preached without a 
 license; that is, of having a license in one parish and preaching in 
 another. He besought the magistrates as a favour, to be bound in 
 irons in the market-place, instead of being confined in the cell where 
 his predecessor had been deprived of life. They treated his remon- 
 strances with indifference, said they were resolved to do their duty, 
 professed not to regard what the public might say of them, and added, 
 that " whoever might come should be treated in the same manner." 
 He was accordingly flung into the dungeon where Mr. Grimsdall had 
 perished. " I found it," says he, "occupied by an insane black wo- 
 man. She was removed, but the cell was exceedingly filthy, and the 
 stench unbearable. It was now eight o'clock in the evening, and the 
 jailer said he "must lock up." I desired that the cell floor might, at 
 least, be swept, which a few friends immediately attended to. There 
 was no bed provided for me, not even one of straw; and it was not 
 until I had made several requests to the jailer, that a few benches 
 from the chapel were allowed to be brought in, on which to make a 
 bed. A large quantity of vinegar, and one of strong camphorated 
 rum, was thrown upon the floor and walls, for the purpose of coun- 
 teracting the very disagreeable eflluvin which proceeded from the filth 
 with which the place abounded, but this produced very little effect. 
 The sea-breeze had subsided, and the only window from which I could 
 obtain the least air, was just above the place in which all the filth of 
 the premises is deposited." Mr. Orton received the intelligence of his 
 persecuted brother's affliction, with a request that he would perform 
 Jiis pastoral duty to his congregation. He did so, and was forthwith 
 committed to the same jail. " Of the horrid state of the place," ho 
 says, "an idea can scarcely be formed from any representation whirh 
 can here be made, as common decency forbids the mention of its lilihy 
 VOL. i. 137
 
 434 NEGRO SLAVERY. 
 
 condition, and the many unseemly practices which were constantly 
 presented to our notice. The hospital, jail, and workhouse are united; 
 the two former are under one roof, occupying an area of about twenty- 
 five feet by thirty-five. On the ground floor were three apartments. 
 In the condemned cell were two unfortunate creatures awaiting their 
 doom. In an adjoining cell were many Negroes, confined for petty 
 offences; and in another apartment on the same floor, forty were 
 crammed together, who had been taken in execution, and were wait- 
 ing to be driven and sold in the market. This building, small and 
 confined, was, especially during the night, literally stowed with per- 
 sons, so that, from the number of the prisoners, and the extreme filth 
 of the Negroes, it was almost unbearable." Let us but reflect on the 
 sufferings of imprisonment even in the best jail of our own temperate 
 climate; and let us then add to those the torments of tropical heats! 
 Think of being enclosed with crowds beyond what the air will supply 
 with the needful nourishment of the lungs, while a fiery sun wheels 
 round the clear sky from morning to night, without the veil of a sin- 
 gle cloud to throw a shade between; where all matter passes instantly 
 from life to putrescence, and water itself, under the pestilent ray, be- 
 comes the source of every frightful malady! Add the unnatural con- 
 dition of the inmates, not there for debts or for offences of their own, 
 but seized for their owner's default, and awaiting, not the judgment 
 of the law, or their liberation under an insolvent act, but till the mar- 
 ket opens, when, like brutes, they are to be driven and sold to the 
 highest bidder! In such a dungeon was it that Mr. Orton and his 
 brethren were immured; and when their strength began to sink, and 
 it seemed plain that they must speedily follow their friend to the 
 grave, they were taken before the Chief Justice, who instantly declared 
 the warrant illegal, and their seventeen days' confinement to have 
 been without the shadow of pretence. 
 
 Who then was in the right, six years ago, in the memorable debate 
 upon the persecution of the Missionary Smith? You, who said enough 
 had been done in broaching the subject, and that religion and her 
 ministers would thenceforward be secure; or I, who warned you, 
 that if my Resolutions were rejected, he would not, by many a one, 
 be the last victim? I would to God that the facts did not so plainly 
 prove me to have foretold the truth. 
 
 I may seem to have said enough; but it is painful to me that I can- 
 not stop here, that I must try faintly to paint excesses unheard of in 
 Christian times which to match we must go back to heathen ages, 
 to the days and to the stations, wherein absolute power made men, but 
 Pagan men, prodigies of cruelty exaggerated by caprice, that I must 
 drag before you persons moving in the higher walks of life, and exert- 
 ing proportionable influence over the society they belong to: an Eng- 
 lish gentleman, and an English gentlewoman accused, guilty, convicted 
 of the most infernal barbarity; and an English community, so far from 
 visiting the enormity with contempt, or indignant execration, that they 
 may make the savage perpetrators the endeared objects of esteem, 
 respect, and affection ! I read the recital from the despatch of the late
 
 NEGRO SLAVERY. 435 
 
 Secretary for the Colonies,* a document never to be sufficiently praised 
 for its statesman-like firmness, for the manly tone of feeling and of 
 determination united, which marks it throughout. " The slave girl 
 was accused of theft," he says; "but some disobedience in refusing to 
 mend the clothes was the more immediate cause of her punishment. 
 On the 22d of July 1S2G. she was confined in the stocks, and she was 
 not released till the 8th of August following, being a period of seven- 
 teen days. The stocks were so constructed, that she could not sit up 
 and lie down at pleasure, and she remained in them night and day. 
 During this period she was flogged repeatedly, one of the overseers 
 thinks about six times, and red pepper was rubbed upon her eyes to 
 prevent her sleeping. Tasks were given her, which in the opinion of 
 the same overseer, she was incapable of performing; sometimes because 
 they were beyond her powers; at other times because she could not 
 see to do them on account of the pepper having been rubbed on her 
 eyes; and she was flogged for failing to accomplish these tasks. A 
 violent distemper had been prevalent on the plantation during the 
 summer. It is in evidence, that on one of the days of her confinement 
 she complained of fever, and that one of the floggings which she re- 
 ceived was the day after she had made this complaint. When she 
 was taken out of the stocks she appeared to be cramped, and was then 
 again flogged. The very day of her release she was sent to field- 
 labour, (though heretofore a house-servant,) and on the evening of the 
 third day ensuing was brought before her owners as being ill and 
 refusing to work, and then she again complained of having had fever. 
 They were of opinion that she had none then, but gave directions to 
 the driver, if she should be ill, to bring her to them for medicines in 
 the morning. The driver took her to the negro-house, and again 
 flogged her, though this time apparently without orders from her 
 owners to do so. In the morning, at seven o'clock, she was taken to 
 work in the field, where she died at noon." Mark the refinement of 
 their wickedness! I nowise doubt, that to screen themselves from the 
 punishment of death due to their crimes, these wretches will now say, 
 they did indeed say on their trial, that their hapless victim died of 
 disease. When their own lives were in jeopardy, they found that she 
 had caught the fever, and died by the visitation of God; but when the 
 question was, shall she be flogged again? shall she, who has for twelve 
 days been fixed in the stocks under the fiery beams of a tropical sun, 
 who has been torn with the scourge from the nape of the neck to the 
 plants of her feet, who has had popper rubbed in her eyes to ward off 
 the sloop that might have stolen over her senses, and for a moment 
 withdrawn hr spirit from the fangs of her tormentors, shall she be 
 subjected by those accursed fiends to the seventh scourging? Oh! then, 
 she had no sign of fever! she had caught no disease! she was all hale, 
 and sound, and fit for the lash! At seven she was flogged at noon 
 she died! and those execrable and impious murderers soon found out 
 that she had caught the malady, and perished by the "visitation of 
 
 * Mr. Huskisson.
 
 436 NEGRO SLAVERY. 
 
 God!" No, no! I am used to examine circumstances, to weigh evi- 
 dence, and I do firmly believe that she died by the murderous hand 
 of man! that she was killed and murdered! It was wisely said by Mr. 
 Fox, that when some grievous crime is perpetrated in a civilized com- 
 munity, we are consoled by finding in all breasts a sympathy with the 
 victim, and an approval of the punishment by which the wrong-doer 
 expiates his offence. But in the West Indies there is no such solace 
 to the mind there all the feelings flow in a wrong course perverse, 
 preposterous, unnatural the hatred is for the victim, the sympathy 
 for the tormentor! I hold in my hand the proof of it in this dreadful 
 case. The Mosses were condemned by an iniquitous sentence; for it 
 was only to a small fine and five month's imprisonment. The public 
 indignation followed the transaction; but it was indignation against 
 the punishment, not the crime; and against the severity, not the lenity 
 of the infliction. The Governor, a British officer and I will name 
 him to rescue others from the blame General Grant tells us in his 
 despatch, that " he had been applied to by the most respectable inhabi- 
 tants to remit the sentence;" that "he loses no time in applying to 
 Lord Bathurst to authorize the remission." He speaks of " the unfor- 
 tunate Henry and Helen Moss;" says, " they are rather to be pitied for 
 the untoward melancholy occurrence," (as if he were talking of some 
 great naval victory over the Turk, instead of a savage murder,) and 
 that "he hastens to prevent the impression, which the mention of the 
 case might make on his lordship's mind." In a second despatch, he 
 earnestly renews the application; describes "the respectability of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Moss, their general kindness to their slaves, the high estima- 
 tion in which they are held by all who have partaken of their hospi- 
 tality;" tells us that "they have always been favourably spoken of in 
 every respect, including that of slave management;" states his own 
 anxiety that "persons of their respectability should be spared from 
 imprisonment;" and that at any rate "the mulct should be relinquished, 
 lest they should be thought cruel and oppressive beyond others, and 
 also in order to remove in some degree the impression of their being 
 habitually and studiously cruel;" and he adds a fact, which speaks 
 volumes, and may well shut all mouths that now cry aloud for leaving 
 such things to the assemblies of the islands "notwithstanding their 
 being in gaol, they are visited by the most respectable persons in the 
 place, and by all who knew them before." The Governor who thus 
 thinks and thus writes, has been removed from that settlement; but 
 only, I say it with grief, to be made the ruler of a far more important 
 colony. From the Bahamas he has been promoted to Trinidad that 
 great island, which Mr. Canning described as about to be made the 
 model, by the Crown, for all Slave colonies. Over such a colony was 
 he sent to preside, who, having tasted of the hospitality of the Mosses, 
 could discern in their treatment of their slaves, nothing out of the fair, 
 ordinary course of humane management. 
 
 From contemplating the horrors of slavery in the West Indies, it is 
 impossible that we can avoid the transition to that infernal traffic, 
 alike the scourge of Africa and America, the disgrace of the old world
 
 NEGRO SLAVERY. 437 
 
 and the curse of the new, from which so much wretchedness has 
 flowed. It is most shocking to reflect that its ravages are still abroad, 
 desolating the earth. I do not rate the importation into the Brazils 
 too high, when I put it at 100,000 during the last twelve months. 
 Gracious God! When we recollect that the number of seventy-three 
 capital punishments, among which are but two or three for murder, in 
 a population of twelve millions, excites our just horror in England, 
 wliat shall we say of 100,000 capital crimes, committed by a handful 
 of desperate men, every one of which involves and implies rapine, 
 fraud, murder, torture, in frightful abundance? And yet we must 
 stand by and see such enormities perpetrated without making any 
 remonstrance, or even urging any representation ! I3y the treaty with 
 Portugal, it is true, no such crimes can henceforth be repeated, for 
 this year the traffic is to cease, and the mutual right of search is given 
 to the vessels of both nations, the only possible security for the aboli- 
 tion being effectual. But there is another country nearer to us in 
 position, and in habits of intercourse more familiar, one of far more 
 importance for the authority of its example, in which the Slave Trade 
 still flourishes in most portentous vigour, although denounced by the 
 law, and visited by infamous punishment; the dominions of the 
 monarch who calls himself " Most Christian," and refuses the only 
 measure that can put such wholesale iniquity down. There it must 
 thrive as long as groundless national jealousies prevent the right of 
 search from being mutually conceded. Let us hope that so foul a 
 stain on the character of so great a nation will soon be wiped away; 
 that the people who now take the lead of all others in the march of 
 liberty, will cast far from their camp this unclean thing, by all lovers 
 of freedom most abhorred. I have heard with amazement some 
 thoughtless men say, that the French cannot enjoy liberty, because 
 they are unused to it. I protest before God I could point to no nation 
 more worthy of freedom; or which knows better how to use it, how 
 to gain it, how to defend it. I turn with a grateful heart to contem- 
 plate the glorious spectacle now exhibited in France of patriotism, of 
 undaunted devotion to liberty, of firm yet temperate resistance to arbi- 
 trary power. It is animating to every beholder; it is encouraging to 
 all freemen in every part of the world. I earnestly hope that it may 
 not be lost on the Bourbon monarch and his councillors; for the sake 
 of France and of England, for the sake of peace, for the sake of the 
 Bourbon princes themselves, I pray that they may be wise in time, 
 and yield to the wish, the determination of vheir people; I pray, that, 
 bending before the coining breeze, the gathering storm may not sweep 
 them away! But of one thing I would warn that devoted race, let 
 them not Hatter themselves that by trampling upon liberty in France, 
 they can escape either the abhorrence of man or the Divine wrath for 
 the execrable trallic in slaves, carried on under their flag, and flourish- 
 ing under their sway in America. I will tell their ghostly councillors, 
 in the language of a book with which they ought to be familiar 
 " Behold, obedience is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the 
 fat of rams.'' To what should they lend an ear? To the commands 
 
 37*
 
 438 NEGRO SLAVERY. 
 
 of a God who loves merey, and will punish injustice, and abhors 
 blood, and will surely avenge it upon their heads; nothing the less 
 because their patronage of slavery in distant climes is matched by 
 their hatred of liberty at home. Sir, I have done. I trust that at 
 length the time is come when Parliament will no longer bear to be 
 told, that slave-owners are the best law-givers on slavery; no longer 
 allow an appeal from the British public, to such communities as those 
 in which the Smiths and the Grimsdalls are persecuted to death, for 
 teaching the Gospel to the Negroes; and the Mosses ho I den in affec- 
 tionate respect for torture and murder: no longer suffer our voice to 
 roll across the Atlantic in empty warnings, and fruitless orders. Tell 
 me not of rights talk not of the property of the planter in his slaves. 
 I deny the right I acknowledge not the property. The principles, 
 the feelings of our common nature, rise in rebellion against it. Be the 
 appeal made to the understanding or to the heart, the sentence is the 
 same that rejects it. In vain you tell me of laws that sanction such a 
 claim! There is a law above all the enactments of human codes the 
 same throughout the world, the same in all times such as it was 
 before the daring genius of Columbus pierced the night of ages, and 
 opened to one world the sources of power, wealth and knowledge; to 
 another, all unutterable woes; such as it is at this day: it is the law 
 written by the finger of God on the heart of man; and by that law, 
 unchangeable and eternal, while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, 
 and abhor blood, they will reject with indignation the wild and guilty 
 phantasy, that 'man can hold property in man! In vain you appeal 
 to treaties, to covenants between nations: the covenants of the Al- 
 mighty, whether the Old covenant or the New, denounce such unholy 
 pretensions. To those laws did they of old refer who maintained the 
 African trade. Such treaties did they cite, and not untruly; for by 
 one shameful compact you bartered the glories of Blenheim for the 
 traffic in blood. Yet, in despite of law and of treaty, that infernal 
 traffic is now destroyed, and its votaries put to death like other pirates. 
 How came this change to pass? Not, assuredly, by Parliament lead- 
 ing the way; but the country at length awoke; the indignation of the 
 people was kindled; it descended in thunder, and smote the traffic, 
 and scattered its guilty profits to the winds. Now, then, let the plant- 
 ers beware let their assemblies beware let the government at home 
 beware let the Parliament beware! The same country is once more 
 awake, awake to the condition of Negro slavery; the same indigna- 
 tion kindles in the bosom of the same people; the same cloud is gather- 
 ing that annihilated the Slave Trade; and, if it shall descend again, 
 they, on whom its crash may fall, will not be destroyed before I have 
 warned them; but I pray that their destruction may turn away from 
 us the more terrible judgments of God! I therefore move you, " That 
 this House do resolve, at the earliest practicable period of the next ses- 
 sion, to take into its serious consideration the state of the slaves in the 
 Colonies of Great Britain, in order to the mitigation and final abolition 
 of their slavery, and more especially in order to the amendment of 
 the administration of justice within the same."
 
 SPEECH 
 
 THE SLAVE TRADE 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, 
 JANUARY 29, 1S3S. 
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 TO 
 
 RICHARD MARQUESS WELLESLEY, K. G. 
 
 ETC. ETC. ETC. 
 
 I.v compliance with the wishes of the friends of the abolition, I have revised the 
 report of this speech, in order that the facts which I yesterday brought before Par- 
 liament, and which all admitted to be truly stated, nay, to have been rather under- 
 stated than exaggerated, may be made known through the country. I believe these 
 pages contain, as nearly as it is possible, what I spoke in my place. 
 
 To your lordship they are inscribed with peculiar propriety, because you are one 
 of the oldest and most staunch friends of this great question, and because your ani- 
 mated descriptions of the Parliamentary struggles in its behalf, at which you have 
 assisted, and of the eloquence of other times which it called forth, have formed one 
 of the most interesting of the many conversations we have had upon the scenes of 
 your earlier life. My own recollections do not reach so Air back; but 1 have now 
 been a zealous, though humble labourer, in the same cause upwards of six-and- 
 thirty years; and it is truly melancholy to reflect that the Slave Trade still desolates 
 Africa, while it disgraces the civilized world, hardly covering with less shame those 
 who suffer, than those who perpetrate the mormons crime. May we hope that at 
 length the object of our wishes is about to be attained! 
 
 Tills dedication is^lfen-d without your permission having been asked. It gives 
 me an opportunity oT faintly expressing that admiration of your truly statesman-like 
 jjfMiim which all your countrymen feel who have marked your illustrious career in 
 Kurope as well as Asia; and that gratitude for your past services which in the public 
 mind never can exceed the affection of your private friends. 
 
 Hut I will confess that another motive contributes to this intrusion upon your 
 retirement. During the years that tho controversy has lasted, I have written and 
 published many rolurncs upon it; this is the first page to which I have set my 
 name; and I naturally f'< el desirous that it should have the advantage of appearing 
 in company with one so incomparably more eminent. 
 
 BROl'tiHAM. 
 
 January 30, 183H.
 
 SPEECH, 
 
 MY LORDS, I hold in my hand a petition from a numerous and 
 most respectable body of your fellow-citizens the inhabitants of 
 Leeds. Between 16 and 17,000 of them have signed it, and on the 
 part of the other inhabitants of that great and flourishing community, 
 as well as of the country at large in which it is situated, I can affirm 
 with confidence that their statements and their prayer are those of the 
 whole province whose people I am proud to call my friends, as it was 
 once the pride of my life to represent them in Parliament. They re- 
 mind your lordships that between eighteen and nineteen millions have 
 been already paid, and the residue of the twenty millions is in a course 
 of payment to the holders of slaves for some loss which it was sup- 
 posed their property would sustain by the emancipation act; whereas, 
 instead of a loss they have received a positive gain; their yearly re- 
 venues are increased, and the value of their estates has risen in the 
 market. Have not these petitioners have not the people of England 
 a right to state, that but for the firm belief into which a generous 
 Parliament and a confiding country were drawn, that the bill of 1833 
 would occasion a loss to the planter, not one million, or one pound, or 
 one penny of this enormous sum would ever have been granted to the 
 owners of the slaves? When it is found that all this money has been 
 paid for nothing, have we not an equal right to require that whatever 
 can be done on the part of the planters to further a measure which 
 has already been so gainful to them, shall be performed without delay? 
 Have we riot an undeniable right to expect for the sake, not more of 
 humanity towards the Negroes, than of strict justice to those whose 
 money was so paid for nothing, under a mere error in fact, that we, 
 who paid the money, shall obtain some compensation ? And as 
 all we ask is, not a return of it, not to have the sums paid under mis- 
 take refunded, but only the bargain carried into full effect, when the 
 Colonial Legislature refuse to perform their part, are we not well 
 entitled to compel them? In a word, have not the people of England 
 a right to demand that the slavery which still exists under the name 
 of Indentured Apprenticeship, shall forthwith cease, all pretext for 
 continuing it, from the alleged risk of the sudden change or the Ne- 
 gro's incapacity of voluntary labour, having been triumphantly de- 
 stroyed by the universal and notorious fact of the experiment of total 
 emancipation having succeeded wherever it has been tried, and of the 
 Negro working cheerfully and profitably where he has been continued 
 an apprentice? In presenting this petition from Yorkshire, and these 
 thirteen others from various parts of the country, I have the honour 
 of giving notice, that as soon as the unfortunate and pressing question 
 of Canada shall have been disposed of by the passing or the rejection 
 of the bill expected from the Commons, that is, in about a week or
 
 THE SLAVE TRADE. 441 
 
 ten days, I shall submit a motion to your lordships with the view of 
 enabling you to comply with the earnest prayer of your countrymen, 
 by fixing the period of complete emancipation on the first of August 
 in this year, instead of 18-10. 
 
 But, my lords, while I thus express my entire concurrence in the 
 sentiments of these petitions, and of the various others which I have 
 presented upon this subject, I cannot conceal from myself that there is 
 a very material difference between the subject of their complaint and 
 of the complaint which I made at our last meeting respecting the con- 
 tinuance not of slavery but the Slave Trade, which I cannot delay for 
 a single hour bringing before Parliament. The grievance set forth 
 in the petitions, is, that the Emancipation act according to some did 
 not go far enough and fast enough to its purpose that while some 
 hold it to have stopped short, in not at once and effectually wiping 
 out the foul stain of slavery, others complain of our expectations 
 having been frustrated in the working of the measure by the planters 
 and the local authorities that enough has not been done, nor with 
 sufficient celerity to relieve the unhappy slave of his burden never- 
 theless all admit that whatever has been effected has been done in the 
 right direction. The objections made are upon the degree, not upon 
 the nature of the proceedings. It is that too little relief has been given 
 to the slave that too late a day has been assigned for his final libera- 
 tion that he still suffers more than he ought: it is not that we have 
 made slavery more universal, more burthensome, or more bitter. But 
 what would have been said by the English people in what accents 
 would they have appealed to this House if instead of finding that the 
 goal we aimed at was not reached that the chains we had hoped to 
 see loosened still galled the limbs that the burthen we had desired to 
 lighten still pressed the slave to the earth it had been found that the 
 curse and the crime of human bondage had extended to regions which 
 it never before had blighted that the burthen was become heavier 
 and more unbearable that the fetters galled the victim's limbs more 
 cruelly than ever what, I ask, would then have been the language of 
 your petitioners? What the sensation spread through the country? 
 What the cry of rage, echoing from every corner of its extent, to 
 charge us with mingled hypocrisy and cruelty, should we allow an 
 hour to pass without rooting out the monstrous evil? I will venture 
 to assert that there would have burst universally from the whole peo- 
 ple an indignant outcry to sweep away in a moment every vestige of 
 slavery, under whatever name it might lurk, and whatever disguise it 
 might assume; and the Negro at once would have been a free man. 
 Now this is the very charge which I am here to make, and prepared 
 to support with proof, against the course pursued with a view to ex- 
 tinguish the Slave Trade. That accursed traffic, long since condemned 
 by the unanimous voice of all the rational world, flourishes under tin; 
 very expedients adopted to crush it: and increases in consequence of 
 those very measures resorted to for its extinction. Yos, my lords, it 
 is my painful duty to show what, without suffering severely, it is not 
 possible to contemplate, far less to recite, but what I cannot lay my
 
 442 THE SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 head once more on my pillow without denouncing, that at this hour, 
 from the very nature of the means used to extirpate it, this infernal 
 traffic becomes armed with new horrors, and continues to tear out, 
 year after year, the very bowels of the great African continent that 
 scene of the greatest sufferings which have ever scourged humanity 
 the worst of all the crimes ever perpetrated by man! 
 
 When the act for abolishing the British slave trade passed in 1807, 
 and when the Americans performed the same act of justice by abolish- 
 ing their traffic in 1806, the earliest moment, it must to their honour 
 be observed, that the Federal constitution allowed this step to be taken; 
 and when, at a later period, treaties were made, with a view to extin- 
 guish the traffic carried on by France, Spain, and Portugal, the plan 
 was in an evil hour adopted which up to the present time has been in 
 operation. The right of search and seizure was confined to certain 
 vessels in the service of the state, and there was held out as an induce- 
 ment to quicken the activity of their officers and crews, a promise of 
 head-money, that is, of so much to be paid for each slave on board 
 the captured ship, over and above the proceeds of its sale upon con- 
 demnation. The prize was to be brought in and proceeded against; 
 the slaves were to be liberated; the ship, with her tackle arid cargo, 
 to be sold, and the price distributed; but beside this, the sum of five 
 pounds for each slave taken on board was to be distributed among 
 the captors. It must be admitted that the intention was excellent; it 
 must further be allowed, that at first sight the inducement held out 
 seemed likely to work well, by exciting the zeal and rousing the cou- 
 rage of the crews against those desperate miscreants who defiled and 
 desecrated the great highway of nations with their complicated occu- 
 pation of piracy and murder. I grant it is far easier to judge after the 
 event. Nevertheless, a little reflection might have sufficed to show 
 that there was a vice essentially inherent in the scheme, and that by 
 allotting the chief part of the premium for the capture of slaves, and 
 not of slave-ships, an inducement was held out,- not to prevent the 
 principal part of the crime, the shipping of the Negroes, from being 
 committed, but rather to suffer tins in order that the head-money 
 might be gained when the vessel should be captured with that on 
 board which we must still insult all lawful commerce by calling the 
 cargo that is, the wretched victims of avarice and cruelty, who had 
 been torn from their country, and carried to the loathsome hold. The 
 tendency of this is quite undeniable; and equally so is its complete 
 inconsistency with the whole purpose in view, and indeed the grounds 
 upon which the plan itself is formed; for it assumes that the head- 
 money will prove an inducement to the cruisers, and quicken their 
 activity; it assumes therefore, that they will act so as to obtain the 
 premium; and yet the object in view is to prevent any slaves from 
 being embarked, and consequently anything being done which can 
 entitle the cruiser to any head-money at all. The cruiser is told to 
 put down the slave trade, and the reward held out is proportioned to 
 the height which that trade is suffered to reach before it is put down. 
 The plan assumes that he requires this stimulus to make him prevent
 
 THE SLAVE TRADE. 443 
 
 the offence; and the stimulus is applied only after the offence has been 
 in great part committed. The tendency, then, of this most preposter- 
 ous arrangement cannot be questioned for a moment; but now see how 
 it really works. 
 
 The slave vessel is fitted out and sails from her port, with all the 
 accommodations that distinguish such criminal adventures, and with 
 the accustomed equipment of chains and fetters, to torture and restrain 
 the slaves the investment of trinkets wherewith civilized men decoy 
 savages to make war on one another, and to sell those nearest to them 
 in blood with the stock of muskets too, prepared by Christians for the 
 trade, and sold at sixteen pence a-piece, but not made to fire above 
 once or twice without bursting in the hand of the poor Negro, whom 
 they have tempted to plunder his neighbour or to sell his child. If taken 
 on lier way to the African coast, she bears internal evidence, amply 
 sufficient, to convict her of a slave trading destination. I will not say 
 that the cruisers having visited and inspected her, would suffer her to 
 pass onward. I will not impute to gallant and honourable men a 
 breach of duty, by asserting, that knowing a ship to have a guilty pur- 
 pose, and aware that they had the power of proving this, they would 
 voluntarily permit her to accomplish it. I will not even suggest that 
 vessels are less closely watched on their route towards the coast than 
 on their return from it. But I must at least affirm, without any fear 
 of being contradicted, that the policy which holds out a reward, not to 
 the cruiser who stops such a ship and interrupts her on the way to the 
 scene of her crimes, but to the cruiser who seizes her on her way back 
 when full of slaves, gives and professes to give the cruiser an interest 
 in letting her reach Africa, take in her cargo of slaves, and sail for 
 America. Moreover, I may also affirm with perfect safety, that this 
 policy is grounded upon the assumption that the cruiser will be influ- 
 enced by the hope of the reward, in performing the service, else what 
 earthly use can it be to offer it? and consequently I am entitled to con- 
 clude, that the offering this reward, assumes that the cruiser cares for 
 the reward, and will let the slaver pass on unless she is laden with 
 slaves. If this does not always happen, it is very certainly no fault 
 of the policy which is framed upon such a preposterous principle. But 
 I am not about to argue that any such consequences actually take 
 place. It may or it may not be so in the result; but the tendency of 
 the system is plain. The fact I stop not to examine. I have other 
 facts to state about which no doubt exists at all. The statements of 
 my excellent friend, Mr. Laird, who, with his worthy coadjutor, Mr. 
 Oldfield, has recently returned from Africa, are before the world, and 
 there has been no attempt made to contradict them. Those gallant 
 men are the survivors of an expedition full of hardships and perils, to 
 which, among many others, the learned and amiable Dr. Briggs, of 
 Liverpool, unhappily fell a sacrifice an irreparable loss to humanity 
 as well as science. 
 
 It appears that the course pursued on the coast is this, The cruiser 
 stationed there to prevent the slave trade, carefully avoids going near 
 the harbour or the creek where the slavers are lying. If she comes
 
 444 THE SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 within sight, the slaver would not venture to put his cargo on board 
 and sail. Therefore she stands out, just so far as to command a view 
 of the port from the mast-head, but herself quite out of sight. The 
 slaver believes the coast is clear; accomplishes his crime of shipping 
 the cargo, and attempts to cross the Atlantic. Now, whether he suc- 
 ceeds in gaining the opposite shore, or is taken and condemned, let us 
 see what the effect of the system is first of all, in the vessel's construc- 
 tion and accommodation that is, in the comforts, if such a word can be 
 used in connection with the hull of a slave-ship or the torments rather 
 prepared for her unhappy inmates. Let us see how the unavoidable 
 miseries of the middle passage are exasperated by the contraband 
 nature of the adventure how the unavoidable mischief is needlessly 
 aggravated by the very means taken to extirpate it. The great object 
 being to escape our cruisers, every other consideration is sacrificed to 
 swiftness of sailing in the construction of the slave-ships. I am not 
 saying that humanity L sacrificed. I should of course be laughed to 
 scorn by all who are implicated in the African traffic, were I to use 
 such a word in any connection with it. But all other considerations 
 respecting the vessel herself are sacrificed to swiftness, and she is built 
 so narrow as to put her safety in peril, being made just broad enough 
 on the beam to keep the sea. What is the result to the wretched 
 slaves? Before the trade was put down by us in 1807, they had the 
 benefit of what was termed the Slave Carrying Act. During the 
 twenty years that we spent in examining the details of the question 
 in ascertaining whether our crimes were so profitable as not to warrant 
 us in leaving them off in debating whether robbery, piracy, and mur- 
 der should be prohibited by law, or receive protection and encourage- 
 ment from the State we, at least, were considerate enough to regulate 
 the perpetration of them; and while those curious and very creditable 
 discussions were going on, Sir William Dolben's Bill gave the unhappy 
 victims of our cruelty and iniquity the benefit of a certain space 
 between decks, in which they might breathe the tainted air more freely, 
 and a certain supply of provisions and of water to sustain their wretched 
 existence. But now there is nothing of the kind; and the slave is in 
 the same situation in which our first debates found him above half a 
 century ago, when the venerable Thomas Clarkson awakened the 
 attention of the world to his sufferings. The scantiest portion which 
 will support life is alone provided; and the wretched Africans are com- 
 pressed and stowed into every nook and cranny of the ship, as if they 
 were dead goods concealed on board smuggling vessels. I may be 
 thought to have said enough; but I may not stop here. Far more 
 remains to tell; and I approach the darker part of the subject with a 
 feeling of horror and disgust, which I cannot describe, and which three 
 or four days gazing at the picture has not been able to subdue. But 
 I go through the painful duty in the hope of inducing your lordships 
 at once to pronounce the doom of that system which fosters all that 
 you are about to contemplate. 
 
 Let me first remind you of the analogy which this head-money sys- 
 tem bears to what was nearer home, called blood-money. That it
 
 THE SLAVE TRADE. 445 
 
 produces all the effects of the latter, I am certainly prepared to affirm; 
 for the giving a reward to informers on capital conviction had the 
 effect of engendering conspiracies to prosecute innocent men, as well 
 as to prevent the guilty from being stopt in their career, until their 
 crimes had ripened into capital offences; and I have no conception that 
 any attempts can be made to capture vessels not engaged in the trade 
 nor indeed could the head-money, from the nature of the thing, be 
 obtained by any such means. But in the other part of the case the 
 two things are precisely parallel, have the self-same tendency, and pro- 
 duce the same effects; for they both appeal to the same feelings and 
 motives, putting in motion the same springs of human action. Under 
 the old bounty system no policeman had an interest in detecting and 
 checking guilt until it reached a certain pitch of depravity, until the 
 offences became capital, and their prosecutor could earn forty pounds, 
 they were not worth attending to. The cant expression, but the sig- 
 nificant one, is well known. "He (the criminal) is not yet weight 
 enough he does not weigh his forty pounds" was the saying of 
 those who cruised for head-money at the Old Bailey. And thus lesser 
 crimes were connived at by some encouraged, nurtured, fostered in. 
 their growth by others that they might attain the maturity which the 
 law had in its justice and wisdom said they must reach before it should 
 be worih any one's while to stop the course of guilt. Left to itself, 
 wickedness could scarcely fail to shoot up and ripen. As soon as he 
 saw that time come, the policeman pounced upon his appointed prey, 
 made his victim pay the penalty of the crime he had suffered, if not 
 encouraged him to commit, and himself obtained the reward provided 
 by the state for the patrons of capital felony. Such within the tropics 
 is the tendency, and such are the effects of our head-money system. 
 The slave ship gains the African shores; she there remains unmolested 
 by the land authorities, and unvisited by the sea; the human cargo is 
 prepared for her; the ties that knit relatives together are forcibly 
 severed; all the resources of force and of fraud, of sordid avarice and 
 of savage intemperance, are exhausted to fill the human market; to 
 prevent all this, nothing, or next to nothing is attempted; the penalty 
 has not as yet attached; the slaves are not on board, and head-money 
 is not due; the vessel, to use the technical phrase, does not yet weigh 
 enough; let her ride at anchor till she reach her due standard of five 
 pounds a slave, and then she will be pursued ! Accordingly, the lading 
 is completed; the cruiser keeps out of sight; and the pirate puts to sea. 
 And now begin those horrors those greater horrors, of which I am 
 to speak, and which are the necessary consequences of the whole pro- 
 ceeding, considering with what kind of miscreants our cruisers have 
 to deal. 
 
 On being discovered, perceiving that the cruiser is giving chase, the 
 slaver has to determine whether he will endeavour to regain the port, 
 escaping for the moment, and waiting for a more favourable opportu- 
 nity, or will fare across ihe Atlantic, and so perfect his adventure, and 
 consummate his crime, reaching the American shores with a part at 
 least of his lading. How many unutterable horrors are embraced in tho 
 VOL. i. 38
 
 446 THE SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 word that has slipt my tongue? A part of the lading! Yes yes 
 For no sooner does the miscreant find that the cruiser is gaining upon 
 him, than he bethinks him of lightening his ship, and he chooses the 
 heaviest of his goods, with the same regard for them as if they were 
 all inanimate lumber. He casts overboard, men and women and 
 children! Does he first knock off their fetters? No! Why? Because 
 those irons by which they have been held together in couples, for 
 safety but not more to secure the pirate crew against revolt, than the 
 cargo against suicide to prevent the Africans from seeking in a watery 
 grave an escape from their sufferings those irons are not screwed 
 together and padlocked, so as to be removed in case of danger from 
 tempest or from fire but they are riveted welded together by the 
 blacksmith in his forge never to be removed, nor loosened, until after 
 the horrors of the middle passage, the children of misery shall be landed 
 to bondage in the civilized world, and become the subjects of Christian 
 kings! The irons, too. serve the purpose of weights; and, if time be 
 allowed in the hurry of the flight, more weights are added, to the end 
 that the wretches may be entangled, to prevent their swimming. 
 Why? Because the Negro, with that herculean strength which he is 
 endowed withal, and those powers of living in the water which almost 
 give him an amphibious nature, might survive to be taken up by the 
 cruiser, and become a witness against the murderer. The escape of 
 the malefactor is thus provided, both by lightening the vessel which 
 bears him away, and by destroying the evidence of his crimes. Nor 
 is this all. Instances have been recorded of other precautions used 
 with the same purpose. Water casks have been filled with human 
 beings, and one vessel threw twelve overboard thus laden. In another 
 chase, two slave ships endeavoured, but in vain, to make their escape, 
 and, my blood curdles when I recite, that, in the attempt, they flung 
 into the sea five hundred human beings, of all ages, and of either sex! 
 These are things related not by enthusiasts, of heated imagination 
 not by men who consult only the feelings of humanity, and are inspired 
 to speak by the great horror and unextinguishable indignation that fill 
 their breasts but by officers on duty, men engaged professionally in 
 the Queen's service. It is not a creation of fancy to add, as these have 
 done, to the hideous tale, that the ravenous animals of the deep 
 are aware of their prey; when the slave ship makes sail, the shark 
 follows in her wake, and her course is literally to be tracked through 
 the ocean by the blood of the murdered, with which her enormous 
 crimes stain its waters. I have read of worse than even this! But it 
 will not be believed! I have examined the particulars of scenes yet 
 more hideous, while transfixed with horror, and ashamed of the human 
 form that I wore scenes so dreadful as it was not deemed fit to lay 
 bare before the public eye! scenes never surpassed in all that history 
 has recorded of human guilt to stain her pages, in all that poets have 
 conceived to harrow up the soul! scenes, compared with which the 
 blood-stained annals of Spain cruel and sordid Spain have regis- 
 tered only ordinary tales of avarice and suffering though these have 
 won for her an unenvied pre-eminence of infamy ! scenes not exceeded
 
 THE SLAVE TRADE. 447 
 
 in horror by the forms with which the great Tuscan poet peopled the 
 hell of his fancy, nor by the dismal tints of his illustrious countryman's 
 pencil, breathing its horrors over the vaults of the Sistine chapel! 
 Mortua quin etiatnjitngebat corpora vivis! On the deck and in the 
 loathsome hold are to be seen the living chained to the dead the 
 putrid carcase remaining to mock the survivor with a spectacle that to 
 him presents no terrors to mock him with the spectacle of a release 
 which he envies! Nay, women have been known to bring forth the 
 miserable fruit of the womb surrounded by the dying and the dead 
 the decayed corpses of their fellow victims. 
 
 Am I asked how these enormities shall be prevented? First ask 
 me, to what I ascribe them? and then my answer is ready. I charge 
 them upon the system of head-money which I have described, and of 
 whose tendency no man can pretend to doubt. Reward men for pre- 
 venting the slaver's voyage, not for interrupting it for saving the 
 Africans from the slave ship, not for seizing the ship after it has re- 
 ceived them; and then the inducement will be applied to the right 
 place, and the motive will be suited to the act you desire to have per- 
 formed. 
 
 But I have hitherto been speaking of the intolerable aggravation 
 which we superadd to the traffic. Its amount is another thing. Do 
 all our efforts materially check it? Are our cruisers always success- 
 ful? Are all flags and all the slavers under any flag subject to search 
 and liable to capture! I find that the bulk of this infernal traffic is 
 still undiminished; that though many slave ships may be seized, many 
 more escape and reach the new world; and that the numbers still 
 carried thither are as great as ever. Of this sad truth the evidence is 
 too abundant arid too conclusive. The premium of insurance at the 
 Havana is no higher than 12 percent, to cover all hazards. Of 
 this 4i per cent, is allowed for sea risk and underwriter's profits, 
 leaving but 8 for the chance of capture. But in Rio it is as low as 
 11 per cent., leaving but 6$ for risk of capture. In the year 1835, 80 
 slave ships sailed from the Havana alone; and I have a list of the 
 numbers which six of those brought back, giving an average of about 
 360: so that about 28,000 were brought to that port in a year. In the 
 month of December of that year, between 4000 and 5000 were safely 
 landed in the port of Rio, the capital of our good friend and ally, the 
 Emperor of Brazil. It is frightful to think of the numbers carried 
 over by some of these ships. One transported 570, and another no 
 less than 700 wretched beings. I give the names of these execrable 
 vessels the Felicidad and the Socorro. Of all slave-traders, the 
 greatest of all the criminals engaged in these guilty crimes, the 
 worst are the Brazilians, the Spaniards, and the Portuguese the 
 three nations with whom our commerce is the closest, and over whom 
 our influence is the most commanding. These are the nations with 
 whom we (and I mean France as well as ourselves) go on in linger- 
 ing negotiation in quibbling discussion to obtain some explanation 
 of some article in a feeble inefficient treaty, or some extension of au 
 ineffectual right of search, while their crimes lay all Africa waste,
 
 448 THE SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 and deluge the seas with the blood of her inhabitants. Yet if a com- 
 mon and less guilty pirate dared pollute the sea, or wave his black 
 flag over its waves, let him be of what nation he pleased to libel by as- 
 suming its name, he would in an instant be made to pay the forfeit of 
 his crimes. It was not always so. We did not in all times, nor in 
 every cause, so shrink from our duty through delicacy or through fear. 
 When the thrones of ancient Europe were to be upheld, or their royal 
 occupants to be restored, or the threatened privileges of the aristocracy 
 wanted champions, we could full swiftly advance to the encounter, 
 throw ourselves into the breach, and confront alone the giant arm of 
 republics and of emperors wielding the colossal power of France. 
 But now when the millions of Africa look up to us for help when 
 humanity and justice are our only clients I am far from saying that 
 we do not wish them well: I can believe that if a word could give 
 them success if a wave of the hand sufficed to end the fray the 
 word would be pronounced the gesture would not be withholden; 
 but if more be wanted, if some exertion is required if some risk 
 must be run in the cause of mercy then our tongue cleaves to the 
 roof of our mouth; our hand falls paralyzed; we pause and falter, and 
 blanch and quail before the ancient and consecrated monarchy of 
 Brazil, the awful might of Portugal, the compact, consolidated, over- 
 whelming power of Spain! My lords, I trust I expect we shall 
 pause and falter, and blanch and quail no more! Let it be the earliest, 
 and it will be the most enduring glory of the new reign, to extirpate 
 at length this execrable traffic! I would not surround our young 
 Queen's throne with fortresses and troops, or establish it upon the 
 triumphs of arms and the trophies of war no, not I ! 
 
 Ov ya xitfotj it'Et^tora -frjv rtofav ovSs rtkii'flotj tyto, ov5 trti z'ovT'otf 
 v jjuavfoii $govw* aM, iav tbv Ipbv fei%t,afjibv, x- -t. X* 
 
 I would build her renown neither upon military nor yet upon naval 
 greatness; but upon rights secured, upon liberties extended, humanity 
 diffused, justice universally promulged. In alliance with such vir- 
 tues as these I would have her name descend to after ages. I would 
 have it commemorated for ever, that in the first year of her reign, her 
 throne was fortified, and her crown embellished, by the proudest 
 triumph over the worst of crimes the greatest triumph mortal ever 
 won, over the worst crime man ever committed ! 
 
 * AHM. IT!i ITE<}>.
 
 SPEECH 
 
 ON THE 
 
 IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICES. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, 
 FEBRUARY 20, 1838. 
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 TO 
 
 THE MARQUESS OF SLIGO, K.P. 
 
 ETC. ETC. ETC. 
 LATE GOVERNOR AND CAPTAIN-GENERAL OF JAMAICA. 
 
 THIS speech is inscribed with peculiar propriety to the humane and virtuous 
 Viceroy, who, himself a master of slaves, gained by his just and beneficent govern- 
 ment of the greatest slave colony in the world, the truly enviable title of the poor 
 Negro's friend. The only other publication upon the subject to which I ever affixed 
 my name, was dedicated to an illustrious statesman, whose life has been devoted to 
 his country's service, and whose noble ambition has always connected itself with 
 ihe improvement of mankind, by that natural sympathy which unites brilliant 
 genius with public virtue. But the fame with which your administration has sur- 
 rounded your character makes it not unfit to name you even after a Wellesley. 
 
 The anxiety expressed from all parts of the country to obtain an authentic report 
 of this speech, and the acceptance with which my countrymen have honoured the 
 humble though zealous efforts of their fellow-labourer in this mighty work, I regard 
 as by far the highest gratification of a long public life. The present occasion also 
 affords me an opportunity of contradicting the studied misrepresentations of some 
 injudicious supporters of the government, who have not scrupled to assert that my 
 principal object in proposing the measures of yesterday, was not the abolition of 
 Negro apprenticeship, but only the regulation of the master's conduct. Nothing 
 can be more wide of the fact than such a statement. 
 
 I appeal to your lordship, and to all who heard me, whether my whole conten- 
 tion was not in behalf of instant and complete emancipation, as the only effectual 
 remedy, and whether I wasted more than a single sentence upon any more pallia- 
 tives. To regulate the master's conduct, while tlio abominable system is suffered 
 to continue, was the purpose of the first five resolutions but my whole forces, 
 such as they are, were brought to bear upon the only position to take which I was 
 very anxious, and, to force an immediate, unconditional surrender of tho master's 
 rights an immediate, unconditional liberation of the slave. 
 
 38*
 
 450 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 
 
 I think I have some right to complain of these misstatements. It was surely 
 enough that I should be resisted hy the whole strength of the government, and that, 
 in consequence of their resistance, my great object of obtaining the Negro's freedom 
 should be defeated, as well as all hopes of effectually destroying the slave trade 
 itself disappointed by the rejection of my other propositions. There is a refinement 
 of subtle injustice in those men propagating a belief through the country, that the 
 conduct of the ministry, by which my motion was defeated, and by which I verily 
 think their official existence is endangered, did not altogether thwart the intentions 
 of the parties by whom that motion was brought forward and supported. The 
 reader of this speech will be at no loss to perceive how entirely its object was the 
 immediate destruction of slavery, and how invariably every word of it was inspired 
 by hostility to the existing system, inextinguishable and uncompromising. 
 
 BROUGHAM. 
 
 February 21, 1838. 
 
 SPEECH, 
 
 I do not think, my lords, that ever but once before, in the whole 
 course of my public life, I have risen to address either House of Par- 
 liament with the anxiety under which I labour at this moment. The 
 occasion to which alone I can liken the present, was, when I stood up 
 in the Commons to expose the treatment of that persecuted Missionary 
 whose case gave birth to the memorable debate upon the condition of 
 our Negro brethren in the Colonies a debate happily so fruitful of 
 results to the whole of this great cause. But there is this difference 
 between the two occasions to sustain my spirits now, that whereas, at 
 the former period, the horizon was all wrapt in gloom, through which 
 not a ray of light pierced to cheer us, we have now emerged into a 
 comparatively bright atmosphere, and are pursuing our journey full 
 of hope. For this we have mainly to thank that important discussion, 
 and those eminent men who bore in it so conspicuous a part. And 
 now I feel a further gratification in being the means of enabling your 
 lordships, by sharing in this great and glorious work nay, by leading 
 the way towards its final accomplishment, to increase the esteem in 
 which you are held by your fellow-citizens; or if, by any differences 
 of opinion on recent measures, you may unhappily have lost any por- 
 tion of the public favour, I know of no path more short, more sure, or 
 more smooth, by which you may regain it. But I will not rest my 
 right to your co-operation upon any such grounds as these. I claim 
 your help by a higher title. I rely upon the justice of my cause I 
 rely upon the power of your consciences I rely upon your duty to 
 God and to man I rely upon your consistency with yourselves and, 
 appealing to your own measures of 1833, if you be the same men in 
 1838, 1 call upon you to finish your own work, and give at length a
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 451 
 
 full effect to the wise and Christian principles which then guided your 
 steps. 
 
 I rush at once into the midst of this great argument. I drag before 
 you, once more, but I trust for the last time, the African Slave Trade, 
 which I lately denounced here, and have so often denounced elsewhere. 
 On this we are all agreed. Whatever difference of opinion may exist 
 on the question of Slavery, on the slave traffic there can be none. I 
 am now furnished with a precedent which may serve for an example 
 to guide us. On slavery we have always held that the Colonial 
 legislatures could not be trusted; that, to use Mr. Canning's expression, 
 you must beware of allowing the masters of slaves to make laws 
 upon slavery. But upon the detestable traffic in slaves, I can show 
 you the proceeding of a Colonial Assembly, which we should ourselves 
 do well to adopt after their example. These masters of slaves, not to 
 be trusted on that subject, have acted well and wisely on this. I hold 
 in my hand a document, which I bless Heaven that I have lived to 
 see. The legislature of Jamaica, owners of slaves, and representing 
 all other slave owners, feel that they also represent the poor Negroes 
 themselves: and they approach the throne, expressing themselves 
 thankful tardily thankful, no doubt that the traffic has been now for 
 thirty years put down in our own Colonies, and beseeching the 
 Sovereign to consummate the great work by the only effectual means; 
 of having it declared piracy by the law of nations, as it is robbery, and 
 piracy, and murder by the law of God. This address is precisely that 
 which I desire your lordships now to present to the same gracious 
 Sovereign. After showing how heavily the Foreign Slave Trade 
 presses upon their interests, they take higher ground in this remarkable 
 passage: " Nor can we forego the higher position, as a question of 
 humanity; representing all classes of the island, we consider ourselves 
 entitled to offer to your Mnjesty our respectful remonstrance against 
 the continuance of this condemned traffic in human beings. As a com- 
 munity, composed of the descendants of Africa as well as Britain, we 
 are anxious to advance the character of the country; and we, there- 
 fore, entreat your Majesty to exert your interest with foreign powers 
 to cause this trade at once to be declared piracy, as the only effectual 
 means of putting it down, and thereby to grace the commencement of 
 your auspicious reign." 
 
 My lords, I will not stop to remind the lawgivers of Jamaica why 
 it is that the slave traffic is a crime of so black a dye. I will not re- 
 mind them that if slavery were no more, the trade in slaves must cease; 
 that if the West Indies were like England, peopled with free men, and 
 cultivated only by free hands, where no man can hold his fellow- 
 creature in bondage, and the labourer cannot be tormented by his 
 masters; if the cart-whip having happily been destroyed, the doors of 
 the prison-house were also flung open, and chains, and bolls, anJ col- 
 lars were unknown, and no toil endured but by the workmen's con- 
 sent, nor any effort extorted by dread of punishment; the traffic which 
 we justly call not a trade; but a crime, would no longer inflict the mise- 
 ries with which it now loads its victims, who, instead of being con-
 
 452 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP, 
 
 veyed to a place of torture and misery, would be carried into a land 
 of liberty and enjoyment. Nor will I now pause to consider the wishes 
 of some colonies, in part, I am grieved to say, granted by the govern- 
 ment, that the means should be afforded them of bringing over what 
 they call labourers from other parts of the globe, to share in the suffer- 
 ings of slavery, hardly mitigated under the name of apprenticeship. 
 That you should ever join your voices with them on this matter, is a 
 thing so out of the question that I will riot detain you with one other 
 remark upon it. But so neither have I any occasion to go at present 
 into the subject of the slave trade altogether, after the statements which 
 I lately made in this place upon the pernicious effects of our head- 
 money, the frightful extent of the Negro traffic, and the horrible atro- 
 cities which mark its course still more awfully now than before. In 
 order to support my call upon your lordships for the measures which 
 alone can extirpate such enormities, I need but refer you to those state- 
 ments. Since I presented them here, they have been made public, 
 indeed promulgated all over the kingdom, and they have met with no 
 contradiction, nor excited the least complaint in any quarter, except 
 that many have said the case was understated; and that in one place, 
 and only in one, I have been charged with exaggeration. I have read 
 with astonishment, and I repel with scorn, the insinuation, that I had 
 acted the part of an advocate, and that some of my statements were 
 coloured to serve a cause. How dares any man so to accuse me? How 
 dares any one, skulking under a fictitious name, to launch his slander- 
 ous imputations from his covert? I come forward in my own person. 
 I make the charge in the face of day. I drag the criminal to trial. I 
 openly call down justice on his head. I defy his attacks. I defy his 
 defenders. I challenge investigation. How dares any concealed adver- 
 sary to charge me as an advocate speaking from a brief, and misrepre- 
 senting the facts to serve a purpose? But the absurdity of this charge 
 even outstrips its malace. I stated that the Negroes were thrown over- 
 board in pairs during a chase to lighten the ship and enable her to 
 escape; thrown overboard in fetters, that they might sink, and not be 
 witnesses against the murderers. The answer is, that this man, if man. 
 he be, had been on board slave ships, and never seen such cruelties. 
 I stated that the fetters were not locked, but rivetted in the forge. 
 The answer is, that the writer had been on board of slave vessels, and 
 seen fetters which were locked, and not riveted. How dares any man 
 deny a statement made upon authority referred to by name, on such a 
 trumpery story as this? As well might he argue that a murder sworn 
 to by fifty or a hundred credible witnesses, had never been committed, 
 because some one came forward and said he had not seen it done. 
 Did I not give the particulars? Did I not avouch my authority? Did 
 I not name the gallant officer from whose official report, printed and pub- 
 lished, my account was taken? Did I not give the respected name of 
 Commodore Hayes, one of the best esteemed officers in her Majesty's 
 service? I, indeed, understated the case in many particulars. But, my 
 lords, if I have not been chargeable with exaggeration if all who 
 took part in the former debate, whether in or out of office, agreed in
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 453 
 
 acquitting me of that so neither shall I be charged for the future with 
 understating the atrocities of the case. What I then withheld, I 
 will now tell and not keeping back my authority now any more than 
 I did before, I appeal to my noble friend near me* for the truth of the 
 appalling story, himself a planter, and an owner of slaves. I ask him 
 if he did not know a vessel brought in with a cargo of a hundred and 
 eighty or two hundred wretched beings jammed into a space three 
 feet and a half in height. 
 
 LORD SLIGO. Two and a half. 
 
 LORD BROUGHAM. There, my lords, I am understating again. Into 
 that space of two feet and a half between the decks, that number 
 of miserable creatures were jammed, like inanimate lumber, certainly 
 in a way in which no Christian man would crowd dumb animals. 
 My noble friend will say whether or not that vessel, whose slaves had 
 never been released, or even washed, or in any way cleansed, since 
 it left the African coast, presented an intolerable nuisance to all the 
 senses a nuisance unfit for any description. Nor is this all. I will 
 be chargeable with understatement no more! The ophthalmia had 
 broken out among the poor creatures thus kept in unspeakable tor- 
 ment; and as often as any one was seized, instead of affording him 
 any medical or other assistance, he was instantly cast overboard, and 
 sunk in his chains, with the view of stopping the infection. I will 
 understate things no more! I said before that as many as 700 slaves 
 were carried across the sea in one ship; there I stopped, for to those 
 who know what a slave ship is, this sufficed to harrow up every feel- 
 ing of the soul. But another vessel brought away, first and last, in 
 one voyage, 9SO miserable, unoffending, simple beings; and of this 
 number, without any chase, or accident, or violence, or any acts of 
 wholesale murder, such as those we have been contemplating, six 
 hundred perished in the voyage, through the hardships and sufferings 
 inseparably connected with this execrable traffic. Of 23 or 2400 car- 
 ried away by four other ships, no less than 1500 perished in like man- 
 ner, having fallen a sacrifice to the pestilential hold. How this enor- 
 mous crime of these foreign nations is to be rooted out I know full 
 well. You must no longer treat it as a mere contraband trade no 
 longer call murder smuggling, or treat pirates as offenders against the 
 revenue laws. As long as our slave traders were so dealt with, they 
 made this calculation " If we escape three times in four, our profits 
 are so large that the seizure and confiscation can be well afforded; 
 nay, if we are taken as often as we escape, the ships netting 20, 30, 
 even as much as 50 and 60,000 pounds a voyage, we can well afford 
 to lose 1500 or 2000 pounds when the adventure fails." So they ran 
 the risk, and oti a calculation of profit and loss were fully justified. 
 But I had iti 1811 the singular happiness of laying the axe to the root 
 of this detestable system. I stopt all those calculations by making the 
 trade felony and punishing it as such; for well 1 know that they who 
 would run the risk of capture when all they could suffer by it was a 
 
 * Lord Slio.
 
 454 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 
 
 diminution of their profits, would be slow to put their heads in the 
 noose of the halter which their crimes so richly deserved. The mea- 
 sure passed through all its stages in both Houses without one dissent- 
 ing voice; and I will venture to assert that ever since, although Eng- 
 lish capital, I have too much reason to think, finds its way into the 
 foreign slave trade, no Englishman is concerned directly with it in 
 any part of the world. Trust me, the like course must be taken if we 
 would put an end to the same crimes in other countries. Piracy and 
 murder must be called by their right names, and visited with their 
 appropriate penalties. That the Spanish and Portuguese traders now 
 make the same calculations which I have been describing, is a certain 
 fact. I will name one Captain Inza, of the ship Socorro, who, on 
 being captured, had the effrontery to boast that he had made fourteen 
 slave voyages, and that this was the first time he had been taken. 
 Well might he resolve to run so slight a risk for such vast gains; but 
 had the fate of a felon-pirate awaited him, not all the gains which 
 might tempt his sordid nature would have prevailed upon him to en- 
 counter that hazard. 
 
 I formerly recounted instances of murder done by wholesale in the 
 course of the chase of our cruisers. I might have told a more piteous 
 tale; and I will no longer be accused of understating this part of the 
 case either. Two vessels were pursued. One after another, Negroes 
 were seen to be thrown overboard to the number of a hundred and 
 fifty, of all ages the elder and stronger ones loaded with their fetters, 
 to prevent them from swimming or floating the weaker were left 
 unchained to sink or expire; and this horrible spectacle was presented 
 to the eyes of our cruisers' men they saw, unable to lend any help, 
 the water covered with those hapless creatures, the men sinking in 
 their chains the women, and piteous sight! the infants and chil- 
 dren struggling out their little strength in the water till they too were 
 swallowed up and disappeared! 
 
 I now approach a subject, not, indeed, more full of horrors, or of 
 greater moment, but on which the attention of the people has for 
 some time past been fixed with an almost universal anxiety, and for 
 your decision upon which they are now looking with the most intense 
 interest, let me add, with the liveliest hopes. I need not add that I 
 mean the great question of the condition into which the slaves of our 
 colonies were transferred as preparatory to their complete liberation 
 a subject upon which your table has been loaded with so many peti- 
 tions from millions of your fellow-countrymen. It is right that I 
 should first remind your lordships of the anxious apprehensions which 
 were entertained in 1833, when the act was passed, because a com- 
 parison of those fears with the results of the measure, will form a most 
 important ingredient of the argument which I am about to urge for 
 the immediate liberation of the apprentices. I well remember how 
 uneasy all were in looking forward to the first of August, 1834, when 
 the state of slavery was to cease, and I myself shared in those feelings 
 of alarm when I contemplated the possible event of the vast but yet 
 untried experiment. My fears proceeded first from the character of
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 455 
 
 the masters. I knew the nature of man, fond of power, jealous of any 
 interference with its exercise, uneasy at its being questioned, offended 
 at its being regulated and constrained, averse above all to have it 
 wrested from his hands, especially after it has been long enjoyed, and 
 its possession can hardly be severed from his nature. But I also 
 am aware of another and a worser part of human nature. I know- 
 that whoso has abused power, clings to it with a yet more convul- 
 sive grasp. I dreaded the nature of man prone to hate whom he 
 has injured because I knew that law of human weakness which 
 makes the oppressor hate his victim, makes him who has injured 
 never forgive, fills the wrong-doer with vengeance against those 
 whose right it is to vindicate those injuries on his own head. I knew 
 that this abominable law of our evil nature was not confined to dif- 
 ferent races, contrasted hues and strange features, but prevailed also 
 between white man and white for I never yet knew any one hate 
 me, but those whom I had served, and those who had done me some 
 grievous injustice. Why then should I expect other feelings to burn 
 within the planter's bosom, and govern his conduct towards the un- 
 happy beings who had suffered so much and so long at his hands? 
 But, on the part of the slaves, I was not without some anxiety, when 
 I considered the corrupting effects of that degrading system under 
 which they had for ages groaned, and recognised the truth of the say- 
 ing in the first and the earliest of profane poets, that " the day which 
 makes a man a slave robs him of half his value." I might well think 
 that the West India slave offered no exception to this maxim; that the 
 habit of compulsory labour might have incapacitated him from volun- 
 tary exertion; that over much toil might have made all work his 
 aversion; that never having been accustomed to provide for his own 
 wants, while all his supplies were furnished by others, he might prove 
 unwilling or unfit to work for himself, the ordinary inducements to 
 industry never having operated on his mind. In a word, it seemed 
 unlikely that long disuse of freedom, might have rendered him too 
 familiar with his chains to set a right value on liberty; or that, if he 
 panted to be free, the sudden transition from the one state to the other, 
 the instantaneous enjoyment of the object of his desires, might prove 
 too strong for his uncultured understanding, might overset his princi- 
 ples, and render him dangerous to the public peace. Hence it was 
 that I entertained some apprehensions of the event, and yielded re- 
 luctantly to the plan proposed of preparing the Negroes for the enjoy- 
 ment of perfect freedom by passing them through the intermediate 
 state of indentured apprenticeship. Let us now see the results of their 
 sudden though partial liberation, and how far those fears have been 
 realized; for upon this must entirely depend the solution of the pre- 
 sent question Whether or not it is safe now to complete the emanci- 
 pation, which, if it only be safe, we have not the shadow of right any 
 longer to withhold. Well, then, let us see. 
 
 The first of August came, the object of so much anxiety and so 
 many predictions that day so joyously expected by the poor slaves, 
 so sorely dreaded by their hard taskmasters; and surely if ever there
 
 456 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 
 
 was a picture interesting, even fascinating to look upon if ever 
 there was a passage in a people's history that redounded to their eter- 
 nal honour if ever triumphant answer was given to all the scanda- 
 lous calumnies for ages heaped upon an oppressed race, as if to justify 
 the wrongs done them that picture, and that passage, and that an- 
 swer were exhibited in the uniform history of that auspicious day all 
 over the islands of the Western sea. Instead of the horizon being lit 
 up with the lurid fires of rebellion, kindled by a sense of natural 
 though lawless revenge, and the just resistance to intolerable oppres- 
 sion the whole of that wide-spread scene was mildly illuminated 
 with joy, contentment, peace, and good-will towards men. No civilized 
 nation, no people of the most refined character, could have displayed 
 after gaining a sudden and signal victory, more forbearance, more 
 delicacy, in the enjoyment of their triumph, than these poor untutored 
 slaves did upon the great consummation of all their wishes which they 
 had just attained. Not a gesture or a look was seen to scare the eye 
 not a sound or a breath from the Negro's lips was heard to grate 
 on the ear of the planter. All was joy, congratulation, and hope. 
 Everywhere were to be seen groups of these harmless folks assembled 
 to talk over their good fortunes; to communicate their mutual feelings 
 of happiness; to speculate on their future prospects. Finding that 
 they were now free in name, they hoped soon to taste the reality of 
 liberty. Feeling their fetters loosened, they looked forward to the day 
 which should see them fall off, and the degrading marks which they 
 left be effaced from their limbs. But all this was accompanied with 
 not a whisper that could give offence to the master by reminding him 
 of the change. This delicate, calm, tranquil joy, was alone to be 
 marked on that day over all the chain of the Antilles. Amusements 
 there were none to be seen on that day not even their simple 
 pastimes by which they had been wont to beguile the hard hours of 
 bondage, and which reminded that innocent people of the happy land 
 of their forefathers, whence they had been torn by the hands of Chris- 
 tian and civilized men. The day was kept sacred as the festival of 
 their liberation: for the Negroes are an eminently pious race. They 
 enjoy the advantages of much religious instruction, and partake in a 
 large measure of spiritual consolation. These blessings they derive 
 not from the ministrations of the Established Church not that the aid 
 of its priests is withheld from them, but the services of others, of 
 zealous missionaries, are found more acceptable and more effectual, 
 because they are more suited to the capacity of the people. The meek 
 and humble pastor, although perhaps more deficient in secular accom- 
 plishments, is far more abounding in zeal for the work of the vineyard, 
 and being less raised above his flock, is better fitted to guide them in 
 the path of religious duty. Not made too fine for his work by pride 
 of science, nor kept apart by any peculiar refinement of taste, but 
 inspired with a fervent devotion to the interests of his flock, the mis- 
 sionary pastor lives but for them; their companion on a week-day, as 
 their instructor on the Sabbath; their friend and counsellor in temporal 
 matters, as their guide in spiritual concerns. These are the causes of
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 457 
 
 the influence he enjoys this the source from whence the good he does 
 them flows. Nor can I pass by this part of the West Indian picture 
 without rendering the tribute of heartfelt admiration which I am proud 
 to pay, when I contemplate the pious zeal, the indefatigable labours 
 of these holy and disinterested men; and I know full well that if I 
 make my appeal to my noble friend* he will repeat the testimony he 
 elsewhere bore to the same high merits, when he promulgated his 
 honest opinion, that " for the origin of all religious feeling among the 
 Negroes, it is among the missionaries, and not the clergy, we must 
 look." Therefore it was that fourteen years ago, I felt all the deep 
 anxiety to which I this night began by referring, when it was my lot 
 to drag before the Commons of England the persecutors of one among 
 the most useful, most devoted, and most godly of that most estimable 
 class of men, who for his piety and his self-devotion had been hunted 
 down by wicked men, conspiring with unjust judges, and made to die 
 the death for teaching to the poor Negroes the gospel of peace. I am 
 unspeakably proud of the part I then took; I glory mightily in reflect- 
 ing that I then struck, aided and comforted by far abler men,t the first 
 of those blows, of which we are now aiming the last, at the chains that 
 bind the harmless race of our colonial peasantry. The first of August 
 came and the day was kept a sacred holiday, as it will ever be kept 
 to the end of time throughout all the West Indies. Every church 
 was crowded from early dawn, with devout and earnest worshippers. 
 Five or six times in the course of that memorable Friday were all 
 those churches filled and emptied in succession by multitudes who 
 came, not coldly to comply with a formal ceremonial, not to give 
 mouth worship or eye worship, but to render humble and hearty 
 thanks to God for their freedom at length bestowed. In countries 
 where the bounty of nature provokes the passions, where the fuel of 
 intemperance is scattered with a profuse hand, I speak the fact when 
 I tell that not one Negro was seen in a state of intoxication. Three 
 hundred and forty thousand si ives in Jamaica were at once set free 
 on that day, and the peaceful festivity of these simple men was dis- 
 turbed only on a single estate, in one parish, by the irregular conduct 
 of three or four persons, who were immediately kept in order, and 
 tranquillity in one hour restored. 
 
 But the termination of slavery was to be the end of all labour; no 
 man would work unless compelled much less would any one work 
 for hire. The cart-whip was to resound no more, and no more could 
 exertion be obtained from the indolent African. I set the fact against 
 these predictions. I never have been in the West Indies; I was one 
 of those whom, undt-r the name of reasoners, and theorists, and vision- 
 aries, all planters pitied for incurable ignorance of Colonial affairs; ono 
 
 * Lord Sligo. 
 
 f The great exertions on that memorable occasion of Lord Chief Justice Den man, 
 Dr. Lushington, and others, are well known; and the report of the interesting cie- 
 hato does them justice. Hut no one from merely reading it can form an adequate 
 idea of Mr. Justice Williams's admirable Rpeech, distinguished alike for closeness 
 of argument and for the severity of Attic taste. 
 VOL. I. 39
 
 458 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 
 
 of those who were forbidden to meddle with matters of which they 
 could only judge who had the practical knowledge of experienced men 
 on the spot obtained. Therefore I now appeal to the fact and I also 
 appeal to one who has been iu the West Indies, is himself a planter, 
 and was an eye-witness of the things upon which I call for his con- 
 firmatory testimony. It is to my noble friend* that I appeal. He 
 knows, for he saw, that ever since slavery ceased, there has been no 
 want of inclination to work in any part of Jamaica, and that labour 
 for hire is now to be had without the least difficulty by all who can 
 afford to pay wages the apprentices cheerfully working for those who 
 will pay them, during the hours not appropriated to their masters. 
 My noble friend made an inquisition as to the state of this important 
 matter in a large part of his government; and I have his authority for 
 stating, that, in nine estates out of ten, labourers for hire were to be 
 had without the least difficulty. Yet this was the people of whom we 
 were told with a confidence that set all contradiction at defiance, with 
 an insulting pity for the ignorance of us who had no local experience, 
 that without the lash there would be no work done, and that when it 
 ceased to vex him the African would sink into sleep. The prediction 
 is found to have been ridiculously false; the Negro peasantry is as 
 industrious as our own; and wages furnish more effectual stimulus 
 than the scourge. but, said the men of Colonial experience the 
 true practical men this may do for some kinds of produce. Cotton 
 may be planted coffee may be picked indigo may be manufactured 
 all these kinds of work the Negro may probably be got to do; but 
 at least the cane will cease to grow the cane-piece can no more be 
 hoed, nor the plant be hewn down, nor the juice boiled, and sugar 
 will utterly cease out of the land. Now, let the man of experience 
 stand forward the practical man, the inhabitant of the Colonies I 
 require that he now come forth with his prediction, and I meet him 
 with the fact. Let him but appear, and I answer for him, we shall 
 hear him prophesy no more. Put to silence by the fact, which even 
 these confident men have not the courage to deny, they will at length 
 abandon this untenable ground. Twice as much sugar by the hour 
 was found, on my noble friend'st inquiry, to be made since the Ap- 
 prenticeship as under the slave system, and of a far better quality; and 
 one planter on a vast scale has said, that, with twenty free labourers, 
 he could do the work of a hundred slaves. But linger not on the 
 islands where the gift of freedom has been but half bestowed look to 
 Antigua and Bermuda, where the wisdom and the virtue has been dis- 
 played, of at once giving complete emancipation. To Montserrat the 
 same appeal might have been made, but for the folly of the Upper 
 House, which threw out the bill passed in the Assembly by the repre- 
 sentatives of the planters. But in Antigua and Bermuda, where, for 
 the last three years and a half, there has not even been an Apprentice 
 where all have been at once made as free as the the peasantry of 
 
 * Lord Sligo. | Lord Sligo.
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 459 
 
 this country the produce has increased, not diminished, and increased 
 notwithstanding the accidents of bad seasons, droughts, and fires. 
 
 But then we were told by those whose experience was reckoned 
 worth so much more than our reasoning, that even if hy some miracle 
 industry should be found compatible \vilh liberty, of which indeed we 
 in our profound ignorance of human nature had been wont to regard 
 it as the legitimate offspring; at all events, the existence of order and 
 tranquillity was altogether hopeless. After so long being inured to 
 the abject state of slavery, its sudden cessation, the instant transition 
 from bondage to freedom, must produce convulsions all over the Colo- 
 nies, and the reign of rebellion and anarchy must begin. Not content 
 with reasoning, the practical men condescend to tax their luxuriant 
 imagination for tropes to dazzle and delude whom their arguments 
 might fail to convince. The child could not walk alone if his leading- 
 strings were cut away the full-grown tree could not be transplanted 
 the limbs cramped by the chain could not freely move the maniac 
 might not safely be freed from the keeper's control; and Mr. Wynd- 
 ham used to bring the play of his own lively fancy upon the question, 
 and say, that if it was a cruel thing to throw men out of the window, 
 he saw no great kindness in making np for the injury you had done 
 by throwing them back again into the house. Alas! for all those 
 prophecies, and reasonings, and theories, and figures of speech. The 
 dawn of the First of August chased away the phantoms, and instead 
 of revolt and conspiracy, ushered in order and peace. But the fanciful 
 men of experience, the real practical visionaries of the West Indies, 
 though baffled, were not defeated. Only wait, they said, till Christmas 
 all who know the Negro character then dread rebellion all experi- 
 ence of Negro habits shows that to be the true season of revolt. We 
 did wait till Christmas and what happened? I will go to Antigua, 
 because there the emancipation began suddenly, without any prepara- 
 tory state of apprenticeship with no gradual transition, but the chains 
 knocked off at once, and the slave in an instant set free. Let then 
 the men of practical experience hear the fact. For the first time these 
 thirty years on that day, Christmas 1834, martial law was not pro- 
 claimed in Antigua. You call for facts; here is a fact a fact that 
 speaks volumes. You appeal to experience here is our experience, 
 your own experience; and now let the man who scoffed at reasoning 
 who laughed us to scorn as visionaries, deriding our theories as wild 
 fancies, our plans of liberty as frantic schemes which never could be 
 carried into effect, whose only fruit must be wide spreading rebellion, 
 and which must entail the loss of all other colonies let him come for- 
 ward now; I dare him to deny one of the statements I have made. 
 Lot those who thought the phrases "Jamaica Planter'* "Colonial 
 interest" "West Indian residence'' flung into the scale of oppres- 
 sion, could make that of morcy and freedom kick the beam let them 
 now hear the fact, find hold their peace; the fact, that neither on the 
 first day of emancipation, nor on the Christmas following the N'gro 
 festival, was there any breach of the peace committed over all the West 
 Indian world. Then, after these predictions had all failed these
 
 460 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 
 
 phantasies been all dispelled the charges against the Negro race 
 been thoroughly disproved surely we might have looked for a sub- 
 mission to the test of experience itself, from the men of experience, and 
 an acquittal of those so unjustly accused, after the case against them 
 had been so signally defeated. No such thing. The accusers, though 
 a second time discomfited, were not subdued; and there was heard a 
 third appeal to a future day an appeal which, had 1 not read it in 
 print, and heard of it in speeches, I could riot have believed possible. 
 Only wait, said these planters, till the anniversary of the first of August, 
 and then you will witness the effects of your rash counsels! Mon- 
 strous effort of incurable prejudice almost judicial blindness! As if 
 they whom the event of liberation itself could not excite to commit the 
 least disorderly act, would be hurried into rebellion by the return next 
 year of the day on which it had happened; and having withstood all 
 temptation to irregular conduct in the hour of triumph, would plunge 
 into excess in celebrating its anniversary! I will not insult the under- 
 standings of your lordships by adding that this prediction shared the 
 fate of all the rest. And are we then now to set at nought all the 
 lessons of real and long continued and widely extended experience? 
 Are we never to profit by that of which we are for ever to prate? I 
 ask you not to take advantage of other men's experience, by making 
 its fruits your own to observe what they have done or have suffered, 
 and, wise by the example, to follow or to avoid. That indeed is the 
 part of wisdom, and reflecting men pride themselves upon pursuing 
 such a course. But I ask nothing of the kind my desires are more 
 humble my demand is more moderate far. I only ask you to be 
 guided by the results of your own experience, to make some gain by 
 that for which you have paid so costly a price. Only do not reject the 
 lesson which is said, in the Book you all revere, to teach even the most 
 foolish of our foolish kind; only show yourselves as ready to benefit 
 by experience as the fool whom it proverbially is able to teach and 
 all I desire is gained. 
 
 But now, my lords, my task is accomplished, my work is done. I 
 have proved my case, and may now call for judgment. I have demon- 
 strated every part of the proposition which alone it is necessary that I 
 should maintain, to prove the title of the apprentice to instant freedom 
 from his task-masters, because I have demonstrated that the liberation 
 of the slave has been absolutely, universally safe attended with not 
 even inconvenience nay, productive of ample benefits to his master. 
 I have shown that the apprentice works without compulsion, and that 
 the reward of wages is a better incentive than the punishment of the 
 lash. I have proved that labour for hire may anywhere be obtained 
 as it is wanted and can be purchased all the apprentices working 
 hours for hire, and all the free Negroes, wherever their emancipation 
 has been complete, working harder by much for the masters who have 
 wherewithal to pay them, than the slave can toil for his owner or the 
 apprentice for his master. Whether we look to the noble minded 
 Colonies which have at once freed their slaves, or to those who still 
 retain them in a middle and half-free condition, I have shown that the
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 461 
 
 industry of the Negro is undeniable, and that it is constant and produc- 
 tive in proportion as he is the director of its application and the master 
 of its recompense. lint I have gone a great deal further I have de- 
 monstrated by a reference to the same experience the same unques- 
 tioned facts that a more quiet, peaceful, inoffensive, innocent race, is 
 not to be found on the face of this earth, than the Africans not while 
 dwelling in their own happy country, and enjoying freedom in a natu- 
 ral state, under their own palm trees, and by their native streams but 
 after they have been torn away from it, enslaved, and their nature 
 perverted in your Christian land, barbarized by the policy of civilized 
 states their whole character disfigured, if it were possible to disfigure 
 it all their feelings corrupted, if you could have corrupted them. 
 Every effort has been made to spoil the poor African every resource 
 of wicked ingenuity exhausted to deprave his nature all the incen- 
 tives to misconduct placed around him by the fiend-like artifice of 
 Christian, civilized men and his excellent nature has triumphed over 
 all your arts; your unnatural culture has failed to make it bear the 
 poisonous fruit that might well have been expected from such abomi- 
 nable husbandry though enslaved and tormented, degraded and de- 
 based, so far as human industry could effect its purpose of making him 
 blood-thirsty and savage, his gentle spirit has prevailed, and preserved, 
 in spite of all your prophecies, ay, and of all your efforts, unbroken 
 tranquillity over the whole Caribbean chain ! Have I not then proved 
 my case? I show you that the whole grounds of the argument of 
 1833, the very pretext for withholding complete emancipation, alleged 
 incapacity for labour, and risk of insurrection, utterly fail. I rely on 
 your own records; I refer to that record which cannot be averred 
 against; I plead the record of your own statute. On what ground does 
 its preamble rest the necessity of the intermediate, or apprentice state; 
 all admitting that nothing but necessity could justify it? " Whereas 
 it is expedient that provision should be made for promoting the indus- 
 try, and securing the good conduct of the manumitted slaves." These 
 are the avowed reasons for the measure these its only defence. All 
 men confessed, that, were it not for the apprehension of liberated 
 slaves not working voluntarily, and not behaving peaceably of sla- 
 very being found to have unfitted them for industry, and of a sudden 
 transition to complete freedom being fraught with danger to the peace 
 of society you had no right to make them indented apprentices, and 
 must at once set them wholly free. But the fear prevailed, which, by 
 the event, I have now a right to call a delusion; and the apprentice- 
 ship was reluctantly agreed to. The delusion went further. The 
 planter succeeded in persuading us that he would be a vast loser by 
 the change, and we gave him twenty millions sterling money to indem- 
 nify him for the supposed loss. The fear is found to be utterly base- 
 less the loss is a phantom of the brain a shape conjured up by the 
 interested parties to frighten our weak minds and the only reality in 
 this mockery is the payment of that enormous sum to the crafty and 
 fortunate magician for his incantations. The spell is dissolved tho 
 charm is over; the unsubstantial fabric of calculating alarm, reared 
 
 39*
 
 462 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 
 
 by the Colonial body with our help, has been crushed to atoms, and 
 its fragments scattered to the wind. And now, I ask, suppose it had 
 been ascertained in 1833, when you made the apprenticeship law, that 
 these alarms were absolutely groundless the mere phantom of a sick 
 brain, or contrivance of a sordid ingenuity would a single voice have 
 been raised in favour of the intermediate state? Would the words 
 Indentured Apprenticeship ever have been pronounced? Would the 
 man have been found endued with the courage to call for keeping the 
 Negro in chains one hour after he had been acknowledged entitled to 
 his freedom? 
 
 I freely admit that formerly, and before the event, when the mea- 
 sure was passed, the proof was upon us, who maintained that the ex- 
 periment of emancipation was safe. We did not pretend to deny all 
 risk; we allowed the possibility of a loss being sustained by the 
 planters; nay, we did more; we took for granted there would be a 
 loss, and a loss to the amount of twenty millions, and that vast sum 
 we cheerfully paid to indemnify them. Then we had not the facts 
 with us; all experience was said to be the other way; and because we 
 could only offer argument against the opinions of practical men of 
 local knowledge, we were fain to let them take everything their own 
 way, and receive our money by way of securing them against the 
 possibility of damage. But now the case is reversed; the facts are all 
 with us; experience has pronounced in our favour, and the burthen 
 of the proof is thrown on the planter, or whoever would maintain, 
 contrary to the result of the trial already made, that there is any risk 
 whatever in absolute emancipation. The case lies in a narrow com- 
 pass; the sudden transition from absolute slavery to apprenticeship 
 from the condition of chattels to that of men has been made without 
 the least danger whatever, though made without the least prepara- 
 tion. It is for those who, in spite of this undoubted fact, maintain that 
 the lesser step of substituting freedom for apprenticeship will be dan- 
 gerous, though made after a preparation of three years, to prove their 
 position. Therefore I am not bound to maintain the opposite propo- 
 sition, by any one argument or by a single fact. Nevertheless, I do 
 prove the negative, against those upon whom it lies to prove the affir- 
 mative; I gratuitously demonstrate, both by argument and by fact, 
 that the transition to freedom from apprenticeship may be safely made. 
 I appeal to the history of Antigua and Bermuda, where the whole 
 process took place at once where both steps were taken in one and 
 where, notwithstanding, there was more tranquillity than had ever 
 before been enjoyed under the death-like silence of slavery. Nay, I 
 prove even more than the safety of the step in question; for in those 
 colonies the transition being so made at once, it follows, a fortiori, 
 that the making the half transition, which alone remains to be made 
 in the rest, is doubly free from all possible risk of any kind, either as 
 to voluntary labour or orderly demeanour. 
 
 But this is not all let us look at the subject from another point. 
 The twenty millions have been paid in advance, on the supposition 
 of a loss being incurred. No loss, but a great gain has accrued to the
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 463 
 
 planter. Then he has received our money for nothins; it is money- 
 paid under a mistake in fact, to propagate which he himself contri- 
 buted. If such a transaction had happened between private parties, 
 I know not that the payer of the money might riot have claimed it 
 back as paid under mistake; or if deception had been practised, that 
 he was not equitably entitled to recover it. lint without going so far, 
 of this I am certain, that all men of honourable minds would in such 
 circumstances have felt it hard to keep the party to his bargain. Again, 
 view the matter from a different point, for I am desirous to have it 
 narrowly examined on all sides. Suppose it is still maintained that 
 the second step we require to be taken will be attended with risk 
 how much is the loss likely to be? Six years apprenticeship and the 
 emancipation were reckoned at twenty millions. No loss has as yet 
 accrued, and four years have elapsed. Then what right have you to 
 estimate the loss of the two years that remain at more than the whole 
 sum? But unless it exceeds that sum, the planter, by giving up these 
 two years, manifestly loses nothing at all; for he has his compensation, 
 even supposing the total loss to happen in two years, for which the 
 money was given, on the supposition of a six years' diminished in- 
 come. But suppose I make a present of this concession likewise, and 
 admit that there may be a loss in the next two years as there has been 
 a gain in the former four, have not I a right to set off that gain against 
 any loss, and then unless twice as much shall be lost yearly in future 
 as has been gained in past years, the planter is on the whole a gainer, 
 even without taking the twenty millions into the account, and although 
 there should be that double rate of loss, contrary to all probability: 
 even without these twenty millions, he will on the whole have lost 
 nothing. But I will not consent to leave that vast sum out of the 
 account. It shall go in diminution of the loss, if any has been suf- 
 fered. It shall be reckoned as received by the planters, and unless 
 they lose, during the next two years, more than twenty millions over 
 and above the gains they have made during the last four, I insist upon 
 it that they be deemed to have suffered no loss at all, even if, contrary 
 to all experience and all reason, they lose by the change. What is 
 the consequence of all this? That at the very least we have a right 
 to make the planters bring their twenty millions to account, and give 
 us credit for that sum so that until their losses exceed it, they shall 
 have no right whatever to complain. Take, now, a new view of the 
 subject, in order that we may have left no stone unturned, no part of 
 the whole subject unexplored have we not at the very least a title 
 to call upon the planters to consign the money into a third party's 
 (Kinds, to pay it, as it were, into court, until it shall be ascertained 
 whether they sustain any loss at all, and, if any, to what amount? I 
 defy all the quibblers in the world to show what right the planters 
 can have, if they insist upon retaining our money, now given for 
 nothing, to keep the Negroes out of their liberty, that money having 
 been paid to compensate a supposed loss, and experience having de- 
 monstrated that instead of loss, the present change has already been 
 to them a gain. My proposal is this, and if the planters be of good
 
 464 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 
 
 faith it must at once settle the question, at least it must bring their 
 sincerity to the test. They say they are afraid of a loss by the ap- 
 prenticeship ceasing then let them either pay the money into court, 
 or keep an account of their losses, and if they, at the end of the two 
 years, after emancipating the apprentices, shall be found to have in- 
 curred any loss, let them be repaid out of the money. I agree that 
 they should be further compensated should their losses exceed the 
 twenty millions, provided they will consent to repay all the money 
 that exceeds the losses actually sustained. This is my proposal and 
 I am as certain of its being fair as I am convinced it will be rejected 
 with universal horror by the planters. 
 
 Once more I call upon your lordships to look at Antigua and Ber- 
 muda. There is no getting over that no answering it no repelling 
 the force with which our reason is assailed by the example of thirty 
 thousand Negroes liberated in one night liberated without a single 
 instance of disturbance ensuing, and with the immediate substitution 
 of voluntary work for hire in the stead of compulsory labour under 
 the whip. There is no getting over that no answering it no repel- 
 ling the force with which it assails the ordinary reason of ordinary 
 men. But it is said that those islands differ from Jamaica and Bar- 
 badoes, because they contain no tracts of waste or woody ground to 
 which Negroes may flee away from their masters, conceal them- 
 selves, and subsist in a Maroon state. I meet the objection as one in 
 front, and I pledge myself to annihilate it in one minute by the clock. 
 Why should free Negroes run away arid seek refuge in the woods, if 
 slaves, or half slaves, like apprentices, never think of escaping? That 
 the slave should run away that the apprentice should fly is intelli- 
 gible; but if they don't, why should a bettering of their condition in- 
 crease their inclination to fly? They who do not flee from bondage 
 and the lash, why should they from freedom, wages, independence, 
 and comfort? But this is not all. If you dread their escape and 
 Marooning now, what the better will you be in 1840? Why are they 
 to be less disposed then than now to fly from you? Is there anything 
 in the training of the present system to make two years more of it 
 disarm all dislike of white severity, all inclination for the life of the 
 Maroon? The minute is not yet out, and I think I have disp.osed of 
 the objection. 
 
 Surely, surely, we are here upon ground often trodden before by 
 the advocates of human improvement, the friends of extended rights. 
 This is the kind of topic we have so often been fated to meet on other 
 questions of deep and exciting interest. The argument is like that 
 against the repeal of the penal laws respecting Catholics if it proves 
 anything, it proves far too much if there be any substance in it, the 
 conclusion is, that we have gone too far already, arid must retrace our 
 steps either complete the emancipation of the Catholics, or re-enact 
 the penal code. The enemies of freedom, be it civil or religious be 
 it political or personal are all of the same sect, and deal in the same 
 kind of logic. If this argument, drawn from the danger of Negroes 
 eloping in 1838, should we emancipate the apprentices, is worth any-
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 465 
 
 thing at all, it is a reason for not emancipating them in 1840, and, 
 consequently, for repealing altogether the law of 1S33. But I shall 
 not live to hear any one man in any one circle of any one part of the 
 globe, either in the eastern hemisphere or in the western, venture to 
 breathe one whisper in favour of so monstrous a course. But I will 
 not stop here. Lives there, my lords, a mnn so ignorant of West 
 Indian society, so blind to all that is passing in those regions, as to 
 suppose that the continuance of the apprenticeship can either better 
 the Negro's condition, or win him over to more love for his master? 
 I am prepared to grapple with this part also of the argument. I un- 
 dertake to demonstrate that the state of the Negro is in but a very few 
 instances better, and in many beyond all comparison worse, than ever 
 it was in the time of slavery itself. 
 
 I begin by freely admitting that an immense benefit has been con- 
 ferred by the cart-whip being utterly abolished. Even if the lash 
 were ever so harshly or unsparingly or indiscriminately applied in 
 execution of sentences pronounced by the magistrate, still the differ- 
 ence between using it in obedience to judicial command, and using it 
 as the stimulus to labour, is very great. The Negro is no longer 
 treated as a brute, because the motive to his exertions is no longer 
 placed without himself, and in the driver's hand. This is, I admit, a 
 very considerable change for the better in his condition, and it is the 
 only one upon which he has to congratulate himself since the act of 
 emancipation was passed. In no one other respect whatever is his 
 condition improved in many it is very much worse. I shall run 
 over a few of these particulars, because the view of them bears most 
 materially upon this whole question, and I cannot better prove the 
 absolute necessity of putting an immediate end to the state of ap- 
 prenticeship, than by showing what the victims of it are daily fated 
 to endure. 
 
 First of all, as to the important article of food, to secure a supply of 
 which in sufficient abundance the slave-regulating acts of all the 
 islands have always been so anxiously directed I will compare the 
 prison allowance of Jamaica with the apprentice allowance in Barba- 
 does, and other colonies, from which we have the returns, there being 
 none in this particular from Jamaica itself. The allowance to pri- 
 soners is fourteen pints weekly of Indian corn, and different quantities 
 of other grain, but comparing one will be sufficient lor our purpose. 
 In Barbadoes the allowance to apprentices is only ten pints, while in 
 the Leeward Islands and Dominica it is no more than eight pints; for 
 the crown colonies, the slave allowance, before 1S34, was twenty-one 
 pints; in the same colonies the apprentice receives but ten; so that in 
 the material article of food there is the very reverse of an improve- 
 ment effected upon the Negro's condition. Next as to time it is cer- 
 tain that he should have half a day in the week, the Friday, to work 
 his own provision-ground, besides Saturday to attend the market, and 
 the Sabbath for rest and religious instruction. The emancipation art 
 specifies forty-five hours as the number which he shall work weekly 
 for his master. But these are now so distributed as to occupy tho
 
 466 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 
 
 whole of Friday, and even in some cases to trench upon Saturday too. 
 The planter also counts those hours invariably from the time when 
 the Negro, having arrived at the place of work, begins his labour. 
 But as it constantly happens that some at least of the Negroes on an 
 estate have several miles to walk from their cottages, all the time thus 
 consumed in going and returning is wholly lost to the Negro. Nay, 
 it is lost to the master as well as the apprentice, and so long as he is 
 not compelled to reckon it in the statutory allowance, it will continue 
 a loss to both parties. For as no reason whatever can be assigned 
 why the Negro huts should be on the frontier of the plantation, only 
 make the time, frequently as much at present as three or four hours a 
 day, consumed in going and returning, count for part of the forty-five 
 hours a week, and I'll answer for it, all the Negroes will be provided 
 with cottages near the place of their toil. 
 
 I come now to the great point of the Justice administered to the peo- 
 ple of colour. And here let me remind your lordships how little that 
 deserves the name of juctice, which is administered wholly by one 
 class, and that the dominant class, in a society composed of two races 
 wholly distinct in origin and descent, whom the recollection of wrongs 
 and sufferings has kept still more widely apart, and taught scarcely to 
 regard each other as brethren of the same species. All judicial offices 
 are filled by those whose feelings, passions, and interests are constantly 
 giving them a bias towards one, and from the other, of the parties 
 directly appearing before the judgment-seat. If to a great extent this 
 is an unavoidable evil, surely you are bound, by every means possible, 
 to prevent its receiving any unnecessary aggravation. Yet we do 
 aggravate it by appointing to the place of Puisne Judge natives of the 
 Colonies, and proprietors of estates. From the same privileged class 
 are taken all who compose the juries, both in criminal and in civil 
 cases, to assess damages for injuries done by whites to blacks to find 
 bills of indictment for crimes committed upon the latter class to try 
 those whom the Grand Jury presents to try Negroes charged with 
 offences by their masters. Nay, all magistrates, gaolers, turnkeys 
 all concerned in working every part of the apparatus of jurisprudence, 
 executive as well as administrative, are of one tribe alone. What is 
 the consequence? It is proverbial that no bills are found for maltreat- 
 ment, how gross soever, of the Negroes. Six were preferred by a 
 humane individual at one assize, and all flung out. Some were for 
 manslaughter, others for murder. Assize after assize presents the 
 same result. A wager was on one occasion offered, that not a single 
 bill would be found that assize, and nobody was found to take it; pru- 
 dent was the refusal proved by the result: for all the bills were ignored, 
 without any exception. Now, your lordships will observe that in no 
 one case could any evidence have been examined by those Grand Juries, 
 except against the prisoner. In cases of murder sworn to, as plainly 
 as the shining of the sun at noonday tide, by witness after witness 
 still they said, "No Bill." Nay, they sometimes said so when only 
 part of the witnesses for the prosecution had been heard, and refused 
 to examine the others that were tendered.
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 467 
 
 The punishments inflicted are of monstrous severity. The law is 
 wickedly harsh; its execution is committed to hands that exasperate 
 that cruelty. Fur the vague, undefinable offence of insolence, thirty- 
 nine lashes; the same number for carrying a knife in the pocket; for 
 cutting the shoot of a cane-plant, fifty lashes, or three months imprison- 
 ment in that most loathsome of all dungeons, a West Indian gaol. 
 There seems to have prevailed at all times among the lawgivers of the 
 Slave Colonies a feeling, of which 1 grieve to say, those of the mother 
 country have partaken; that there is something in the nature of a 
 slave something in the disposition of the African race something in 
 the habits of those hapless victims of our crimes, our cruelties and 
 frauds which requires a peculiar harshness of treatment from their 
 rulers, and makes what in other men's cases we call justice and 
 mercy, cruelty to society and injustice to the law in theirs; inducing 
 us to visit with the extremity of rigour in the African what if done by 
 our own tribes would be slightly visited or not at all, as though there 
 were in the Negro nature something so obdurate that no punishment 
 with which they can be punished would be too severe. Prodigious, 
 portentous injustice! As if we had a right to blame any but ourselves 
 for whatever there may be of harsh or cunning in our slaves as if 
 we were entitled to visit upon them that disposition, were it obdurate, 
 those habits, were they insubordinate, those propensities, were they 
 dishonest, (all of which I deny them to be, and every day's experience 
 justifies my denial,) but were these charges as true as they are foully 
 slanderous and absolutely false is it for us to treat our victims harshly 
 for failings or for faults with which our treatment of them has cor- 
 rupted and perverted their nature, instead of taking to ourselves the 
 blame punishing ourselves at least with self-abasement, and atoning 
 with deepest shame for having implanted vice in a pure soil? If some 
 capricious despot were, in the career of ordinary tyranny, to tax his 
 pampered fancy to produce something more monstrous, more unnatu- 
 ral than himself; were he to graft the thorn upon the vine, or place the 
 dove among vultures to be reared much as we might marvel at this 
 freak of a perverted appetite, we should marvel still more if we saw 
 tyranny exceed even its own measure of proverbial unreasonableness, 
 and complain because the grape was not gathered from the thorn, or be- 
 cause the dove so trained had a thirst for blood. Yet this is the unnatu- 
 ral caprice this the injustice the gross, the foul, the outrageous, the 
 monstrous, the incredible injustice of which we are daily and hourly 
 guilty towards the whole of the ill-fated African race! 
 
 My lords, we fill up the measure of this injustice by executing laws 
 wickedly conceived, in a yet more atrocious spirit of cruelty. Our 
 whole punishments smell of blood. Lest the treadmill stop, from the 
 weary limbs and exhausted frame of the sufferers no longer having the 
 power to press it down the requisite number of turns in a minute the 
 lash instantly resounds through the mansion of woe! Lest the stone 
 spread out to be broken, crumble not fast enough beneath the arms 
 already scarred, flayed, and wealed by the whip again the scourge 
 tears afresh the halt-healed flesh! Within the last hour before I en-
 
 468 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 
 
 tered this House, I heard from an eye-witness of the fact as disgusting 
 as it was appalling, that a leper among the prisoners was cut, to pieces 
 by stripes with the rest. And in passing, let me here note the univer- 
 sal but cruel practice of placing the patients stricken with infectious 
 diseases in hospitals, and in prisons among others, upon almost all 
 private estates; and the no less unjust and exclusively West Indian 
 practice of cruelly and stingily compelling the prisoners to go out daily 
 and find their own food, instead of the master supplying them in the 
 gaol a refinement of harshness and meanness not, I venture to assert, 
 ever reached by the tyrant master of the Siberian mines. But I was 
 speaking of the public prison, and there as the leper had been scourged, 
 so when a miserable wretch, whose legs were one mass of ulcerated 
 flesh from former inflictions, gave some offence to his task-masters, he 
 was on those limbs mangled anew by the merciless application of the 
 lash. I have told you how the bills for murdering Negroes were sys- 
 tematically thrown out by the Grand Juries. But you are not to 
 imagine that bills are never found by those just men, even bills against 
 Whites. A person of this cast had, unable to bridle his indignation, 
 roused by the hideous spectacle I have described (so disgusting, but 
 that all other feelings are lost in pity for the victim, and rage against 
 his oppressor,) repaired to the Governor, and informed him of what he 
 had witnessed. Immediately the Grand Jury, instead of acknowledg- 
 ing his humane, and, in a slave colony, his gallant conduct, found a 
 bill against him, and presented him as a nuisance! 
 
 My lords, I have had my attention directed within the last two 
 hours to the new mass of papers laid on our table from the West 
 Indies. The bulk I am averse to break; but a sample I have culled 
 of its hateful contents. Eleven females were punished by severe flog- 
 ging and then put on the treadmill, where they were compelled to 
 ply until exhausted nature could endure no more. When faint, and 
 about to fall off, they were suspended by the arms in a manner that 
 has been described to me by a most respectable eye-witness of similar 
 scenes, but not so suspended as that the mechanism could revolve 
 clear of their persons; for the wheels at each turn bruised and galled 
 their legs, till their sufferings had reached the pitch when life can no 
 longer even glimmer in the socket of the weary frame. In the course 
 of a few days these wretched beings languished, to use the language 
 of our law that law which is thus so constantly and systematically 
 violated and "languishing died." Ask you if crimes like these, 
 murderous in their legal nature as well as frightful in their aspect, 
 passed unnoticed if inquiry was neglected to be made respecting 
 these deaths in a prison! No such thing! The forms of justice were 
 on this head peremptory, even in the West Indies and those forms, 
 the handmaids of justice, were present, though their sacred mistress 
 was far away. The coroner duly attended his jury was regularly 
 impannelled eleven inquisitions were made in order and eleven 
 verdicts returned. Murder! manslaughter! misdemeanour! miscon- 
 duct! No but " Died by the visitation of God!" Died by the visi- 
 tationofGod! A lie! a perjury! a blasphemy! The visitation of
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 469 
 
 God! Yes, for it is among the most awful of those visitations by 
 which the inscrutable purposes of his will are mysteriously accom- 
 plished, that he sometimes arms the wicked with power to oppress the 
 guiltless; and if there beany visitation more dreadful than another 
 any which more tries the faith and vexes the reason of erring mortals, 
 it is when Heaven showers down upon the earth the plague not of 
 scorpions, or pestilence, or famine, or war but of unjust judges and 
 perjured jurors wretches who pervert the law to wreak their per- 
 sonal vengeance or compass their sordid ends, forswearing themselves 
 on the Gospels of God, to the end that injustice may prevail, and the 
 innocent be destroyed! 
 
 Sed nos immensum spatiis confecimus nequor, 
 Et jam tempus equum fumantia solvere colla. 
 
 I hasten to a close. There remains little to add. It is, my lords, 
 with a view to prevent such enormities as I have feebly pictured be- 
 fore you, to correct the administration of justice, to secure the com- 
 forts of the Negroes, to restrain the cruelty of the tormentors, to amend 
 the discipline of the prisons, to arm the governors with local authority 
 over the police; it is with these views that I have formed the first five 
 of the resolutions now upon your table, intending they should take 
 effect during the very short interval of a few months which must 
 elapse before the sixth shall give complete liberty to the slave. I en- 
 tirely concur in the observation of Mr. Burke, repeated and more 
 happily expressed by Mr. Canning, that the masters of slaves are not 
 to be trusted with making laws upon slavery; that nothing they do is 
 ever found effectual; and that if by some miracle they ever chance to 
 enact a wholesome regulation, it is always found to want what Mr. 
 Burke calls " the executory principle;" it fails to execute itself. But 
 experience has shown that when the lawgivers of the colonies find 
 you are firmly determined to do your duty, they anticipate you by 
 doing theirs. Thus, when you announced the bill for amending the 
 emancipation act, they outstript you in Jamaica, and passed theirs 
 before yours could reach them. Let then your resolutions only show 
 you to be in good earnest now, and I have no doubt a corresponding 
 disposition will be evinced on the other side of the Atlantic. These 
 improvements are, however, only to be regarded as temporary expe- 
 dients as mere palliatives of an enormous mischief, for which the 
 only effectual remedy is that complete emancipation which 1 have de- 
 monstrated by the unerring and incontrovertible evidence of facts, as 
 well as the clearest deductions of reason, to be safe and practicable, 
 and therefore proved to be our imperative duly at once to proclaim. 
 
 From the instant that glad sound is wafted across the ocean, what 
 a blessed change begins; what an enchanting prospect unfolds itself! 
 The African, placed on the same footing with other men, becomes in 
 reality our fellow-citizen to our fecliims, as well as in his own na- 
 ture our equal, our brother. No difference of origin or of colour can 
 now prevail to keep the two castes apart. The Negro, master of his 
 own labour, only induced to lend his assistance if you make it his 
 VOL. i. 40
 
 470 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 
 
 interest to help you, yet that aid being absolutely necessary to pre- 
 serve your existence, becomes an essential portion of the community, 
 nay, the very portion upon which the whole must lean for support. 
 This ensures him all his rights; this makes it not only no longer pos- 
 sible to keep him in thraldom, but places him in a complete and inti- 
 mate union with the whole mass of colonial society. Where the 
 driver and the gaoler once bore sway, the lash resounds no more; nor 
 does the clank of the chain any more fall upon the troubled ear; the 
 fetter has ceased to gall the vexed limb, and the very mark disappears 
 which for a while it had left. All races and colours run together the 
 same glorious race of improvement. Peace unbroken, harmony un- 
 interrupted, calm unruffled, reigns in mansion and in field in the 
 busy street, and the fertile valley, where nature, with the lavish hand 
 she extends under the tropical sun, pours forth all her bounty pro- 
 fusely, because received in the lap of cheerful industry, not extorted 
 by hands cramped with bonds. Delightful picture of general pros- 
 perity and social progress in all the arts of civility and refinement! 
 But another form is near! and I may not shut my eyes to that less 
 auspicious vision. I do not deny that danger exists I admit it not to 
 be far distant from our path. I descry it, but not in the quarter to 
 which West Indian eyes for ever turn. The planter, as usual, looks 
 in the wrong direction. Averting his eyes from the real risk, he is 
 ready to pay the price of his blindness, and rush upon his ruin. His 
 interest tells him he is in jeopardy, but it is a false interest, and misleads 
 him as to the nature of the risk he runs. They, who always dreaded 
 emancipation who were alarmed at the prospect of Negro indolence 
 who stood aghast at the vision of Negro rebellion should the chains 
 cease to rattle, or the lash to resound through the air gathering no 
 wisdom from the past, still persist in affrighting themselves and scaring 
 you, with imaginary apprehensions from the transition to entire free- 
 dom out of the present intermediate state. But that intermediate 
 state is the very source of all their real danger; and I disguise not its 
 magnitude from myself. You have gone too far if you stop here and 
 go no further; you are in imminent hazard if, having loosened the 
 fetters, you do not strike them off if, leaving them ineffectual to re- 
 strain, you let them remain to gall, and to irritate, and to goad. Be- 
 ware of that state, yet more unnatural than slavery itself liberty 
 bestowed by halves the power of resistance given the inducement 
 to submission withheld. You have let the slave taste of the cup of 
 freedom; while intoxicated with the draught, beware how you dash 
 the cup away from his lips. You have produced the progeny of 
 liberty see the prodigious hazard of swathing the limbs of the gigan- 
 tic infant you know not the might that may animate it. Have a 
 care, I beseech you have a care, how you rouse the strength that 
 slumbers in the sable peasant's arm! The children of Africa, under 
 the tropical sun of the west, with the prospect of a free Negro republic 
 in sight, will not suffer themselves to be tormented when they no 
 longer can be controlled. The fire in St. Domingo is raging to wind- 
 ward, its sparks are borne on the breeze, and all the Caribbean sea is
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 471 
 
 studded with the materials of explosion. Every tribe, every shade of 
 the Negro race will combine from the fiery Koromantin to the peace- 
 ful Eboe, and the ghastly shape of colonial destruction meets the 
 astonished eye 
 
 "If shape it may be called that shape has none 
 Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb; 
 Or substance may be called that shadow seems, 
 For each seems either; black it stood as night, 
 Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell!" 
 
 I turn away from the horrid vision that my eye may rest once more 
 on the prospect of enduring empire, and peace founded upon freedom. 
 I regard the freedom of the Negro as accomplished and sure. Why? 
 because it is his right because he has shown himself fit for it; because 
 a pretext, or a shadow of a pretext, can no longer be devised for with- 
 holding that right from its possessor. I know that all men at this day 
 take a part in the question, and they will no longer bear to be imposed 
 upon, now they are well informed. My reliance is firm and unflinch- 
 ing upon the great change which I have witnessed the education of 
 the people, unfettered by party or by sect witnessed from the begin- 
 ning of its progress, I may say from the hour of its birth. Yes! It was 
 not for a humble man like me to assist at royal births with the illus- 
 trious Prince who condescended to grace the pageant of this opening 
 session, or the great captain and statesman in whose presence I am 
 now proud to speak. But with that illustrious Prince, and with the 
 father of the Queen, I assisted at that other birth, more conspicuous 
 still. With them, and with the head of the House of Russell, incom- 
 parably more illustrious in my eyes, I watched over its cradle I 
 marked its growth I rejoiced in its strength I witnessed its maturity; 
 I have been spared to see it ascend the very height of supreme power; 
 directing the councils of state; accelerating every great improvement; 
 uniting itself with every good work; propping all useful institutions; 
 extirpating abuses in all our institutions; passing the bounds of our 
 European dominion, and in the New World, as in the Old, proclaim- 
 ing that freedom is the birthright of man that distinction of colour 
 gives no title to oppression that the chains now loosened must be 
 struck off, and even the marks they have left effaced proclaiming 
 this by the same eternal law of our nature which makes nations the 
 masters of their own destiny, and which in Europe has caused every 
 tyrant's throne to quake! Hut they need feel no alarm at the progress 
 of light who defend a limited monarchy and support popular institu- 
 tions who place their chiefest pride not in ruling over slaves, be (hey 
 white or be they black, not in protecting the oppressor, but in wearing 
 a constitutional crown, in holding the sword of justice with the hand 
 of mercy, in being the first citizen of a country whose air is too pure 
 for slavery to breathe, and on whose shores, if the captive's foot but 
 touch, his fetters of themselves fall otf. To the resistless progress of 
 this great principle I look with a confidence which nothing can shake; 
 it makes all improvement certain; it makes all change safe which it
 
 ;472 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP. 
 
 produces; for none can be brought about unless all has been prepared 
 in a cautious and salutary spirit. So now the fulness of time is come 
 for at length discharging our duty to the African captive. I have de- 
 monstrated to you that everything is ordered every previous step 
 taken all safe, by experience shown to be safe, for the long-desired 
 consummation. The time has come, the trial has been made, the 
 hour is striking: you have no longer a pretext for hesitation, or fal- 
 tering, or delay. The slave has shown, by four years' blameless be- 
 haviour, and devotion to the pursuits of peaceful industry, that he is as 
 fit for his freedom as any English peasant, ay or any lord whom I 
 now address. I demand his rights; I demand his liberty without stint. 
 In the name of justice and of law in the name of reason in the 
 name of God, who has given you no right to work injustice; I demand 
 that your brother be no longer trampled upon as your slave! I make 
 my appeal to the Commons, who represent the free people of England; 
 and I require at their hands the performance of that condition for 
 which they paid so enormous a price that condition which all their 
 constituents are in breathless anxiety to see fulfilled ! I appeal to this 
 House. Hereditary judges of the first tribunal in the world to you 
 I appeal for justice! Patrons of all the arts that humanize mankind 
 under your protection I place humanity herself! To the merciful 
 Sovereign of a free people I call aloud for mercy to the hundreds of thou- 
 sands for whom half a million of her Christian sisters have cried aloud 
 I ask that their cry may not have risen in vain. But first I turn my 
 eye to the throne of all justice, and devoutly humbling myself before 
 Him who is of purer eyes than to behold such vast iniquities, I implore 
 that the curse hovering over the head of the unjust and the oppressor 
 be averted from us that your hearts may be turned to mercy and 
 that over all the earth His will may at length be done!
 
 SPEECH 
 
 UPON THE 
 
 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, 
 MARCH 6, 1838. 
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 TO 
 
 ARTHUR DUKE OF WELLINGTON, K. G. 
 
 ETC. ETC. ETC. 
 
 THE uniform candour which guides your public conduct, and so often makes you 
 sacrifice what ordinary men would reckon fair party advantages, induces me to hope 
 that you will listen to the earnest entreaty which I now make, that you would 
 peruse the arguments and the statements of this speech, with the attention certainly 
 due to the subject, though not to the speaker. If you do, I feel very confident that 
 you will be disposed to admit that your moving the previous question upon my 
 resolutions last night, was ill-considered; and even if you should not arrive at this 
 conclusion, I still entertain the most sanguine hope that a further attention to the 
 subject will incline you to support the next proposition which may be brought for- 
 ward upon the same matter. 
 
 There is hut one meaning of a previous question. It never can with propriety 
 be moved unless when the original motion was held to be irresistible on its own 
 merits. Consequently, no ministry ever before, within my knowledge, would con- 
 sent to accept ot an escape from a vote of censure by a proceeding which admits 
 their guilt or their error, and only professes an unwillingness to condemn them. 
 Unless the truth of the resolutions was undeniable, the previous question last night 
 could have no meaning, and my motion should have been met with a direct nega- 
 tive. 
 
 The eagerness with which the ministers caught at your offer of letting them 
 escape, censured in substance though without a formal sentence pronounced against 
 them, provided they would adopt and enact your plan themselves, was very remark- 
 able. IJut this mad(! no difference in their former conduct. Nay, all the regula- 
 tions which they can make must leave the worst parts of their whole error untouch- 
 ed; because they cannot make laws for the coast of Africa or the settlements of 
 foreign crowns. 
 
 Hut if it is certain, nay, if it is admitted by yourself and others, that this order 
 should not have been issued, at all events without guards and precautions, surely 
 it was not expecting loo much to look for an expression of disapproval from I'arlia- 
 
 40*
 
 474 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 merit when a measure for ENCOURAGING THE SLAVE TRADE was brought before it. 
 The character of the country and its success in all negotiations on the foreign traffic 
 seemed imperatively to require that step. 
 
 I have in this address to your grace employed not the language of panegyric, 
 which you of all men would the most despise, but the language of truth which you 
 know well how to value. "The treachery which deceives is as criminal as that 
 which would dethrone you" was the memorable saying of the great French orator 
 to a sovereign* who loved the treason of pleasing flattery more than the loyalty of 
 unpalatable truth. 
 
 It is a thing of the utmost importance to the honour and interest of the country, 
 that one who stands in your pre-eminent position should upon such a question as 
 the slave trade have his eyes opened, in order that he may be found to side with all 
 the other great statesmen of his age. 
 
 BROUGHAM. 
 
 March 7, 1838. 
 
 SPEECH, 
 
 IP, my lords, of all the subjects that ever engaged the attention of 
 this country, and of its Parliament, the one which I am about to 
 broach before your lordships has been found to possess at all times the 
 most commanding attractions; and if, after struggling in the public 
 mind and in the chambers of the legislature through a long course of 
 years, it at length ended in the most brilliant victory ever gained by 
 truth for humanity and justice; I will venture to affirm that now, when 
 we had been fain to hope the battle was won, the doom of the slave 
 trade pronounced by the universal voice of mankind, and the state of 
 slavery itself condemned the only question being as to the precise 
 moment for executing the sentence the question of the traffic will be 
 found to have lost nothing of its pristine and enduring interest, but 
 that the attention of the world will be arrested, and the feelings of 
 mankind be around in greater excess than ever, by the new ingredient 
 mingled in the cup of bitter disappointment at finding our hopes still 
 so far from realized and marking the efforts once more making to 
 revive that execrable traffic which all men had believed to have been 
 for ever destroyed. For when I look at this order in council, and 
 compare its frame, its professed object, its inevitable consequences, 
 with everything that the history of the past has taught us of the slave 
 trade, I am compelled to express the bitterness of the anguish which 
 fills my bosom on reflecting that towards the middle of the nineteenth 
 century, full fifty years after that monstrous iniquity was dragged into 
 the light of public discussion, and thirty years after we believed it ex- 
 
 * Massillon "La perfidie qui vous trompe cst aussi criminelle que celle qui vous de- 
 troneroit."
 
 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 475 
 
 tirpated from the British world, I am actually standing here to grapple 
 with a measure which all but professes to plant it anew, and of neces- 
 sity must have the effect of extending its range to coasts which hitherto 
 it had spared. 
 
 But in thus coming forward, no man can accuse me of proposing a 
 censure against the government without giving ample warning, and 
 affording abundant opportunity for escape or amendment. It is 
 upwards of six weeks since I dragged to light this reluctant act of 
 council I say reluctant because though passed in July last, not the 
 least intimation of its existence was ever given, by publication in the 
 Gazette, the ordinary repertory of much less important proceedings 
 of state. I am told, indeed, that it is the practice not to publish such 
 orders but I am sure it is a course " more honoured in the breach 
 than in the observance." For when we consider that such orders, 
 framed in private by the minister, make the law of the crown colonies 
 as absolutely as the law of England is made by the enactments, the 
 open and public enactments, of King, Lords, and Commons, surely it is 
 not too much to desire that those resolutions of the executive govern- 
 ment, thus private in their adoption, and, it may be, little considered 
 before made, should not be consigned at once to the council books, 
 where they can only be accessible to the clerks, but should be pro- 
 mulged to the whole people whose interests they concern, whose con- 
 duct they govern. When I denounced this order, I stated shortly but 
 distinctly my reasons for condemning it; I showed in some detail how 
 it must work; I referred to the former history of slave trading to illus- 
 trate my meaning; and believing, or willing to believe, that it had 
 been issued through inattention, or negligence, or indolence, or igno- 
 rance of the subject, I said, " Let it only be withdrawn, and I shall 
 never again advert to the subject in any way nor comment upon the 
 issuing it nor in any manner make it the subject of observation." 
 I have waited since then, anxiously looking for its recall; but I find 
 my not unfriendly suggestion was thrown away, and that the measure 
 is persisted in, maintained, defended, by its authors. No man, then, 
 can accuse me of having stood by while mischief was brewing, and 
 only spoken out after it was done. No man can, without the most 
 indecent disregard of truth, charge me here with crying, " I warned 
 you," when the event is o'er. And yet I have seen, what on no other 
 evidence than the testimony of my own senses I could have believed, 
 this charge made against me when it was just as false as it would be 
 now. I have been vilely, impudently, most falsely aspersed for stand- 
 ing by and saying nothing on the great Canada question charged in 
 the records of the government press, with being like 
 
 Juggling friends, who never spoke before, 
 
 Hut cry, " I warned you," when the event is o'er. 
 
 Incredible but true! I have often heard it disputed among critics 
 which of all quotations was the most appropriate the most closely
 
 476 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 applicable to the subject-matter illustrated; and the palm is generally 
 awarded to that which applied to Dr. Franklin the line in Claudian, 
 
 " Eripuit fulmen coelo, mox sceptra tyrannis," 
 
 yet still there is a difference of opinion, and even that citation, admi- 
 rably close as it is, has rivals. But who has hit upon the most inap- 
 plicable quotation, no critic will hereafter presume to doubt. The 
 government scribe must be allowed by universal consent to bear away 
 the palm of inaptness and falsehood from all his rivals in the art of 
 false quoting as of fabrication. So far from standing by till after the 
 event, I addressed your lordships and the government as long ago as 
 March last, and afterwards warned them, with full reasons, and in 
 much detail, both in my place and in an elaborate protest, which yet 
 stands on your journals to record the warning my voice had given. 
 So far from waiting till the event justified my warning, and then cry- 
 ing, " I warned you," I never even said so never once, that I can 
 recollect, taunted them with having neglected my warning voice after 
 the rebellion broke out of which I had bidden them to beware. If, 
 then, I now say that I do not expect any one will have the effrontery 
 to bring a similar charge on this occasion, it is riot because as great 
 effrontery has not been displayed before, but because such audacity 
 can hardly be repeated a second time by any one at so short an inter- 
 val after a former exposure to the indignation and scorn of the world, 
 under which, unless all feeling be extinct, its author must now be 
 writhing. 
 
 I must now begin by shortly restating what I six weeks ago said 
 of the nature and import of this order in council. An order of March 
 1837 had sanctioned the ordinance made by the Court of Policy in 
 Guiana, with the intention of confining the period of apprenticeship 
 to three years. In July, representations were made by some planters, 
 that if this term were not extended to five years, no man could possi- 
 bly bring any labourers into the colony. No cargoes of human beings 
 could be imported to share the lot of the half-freed slaves, by becoming 
 indentured apprentices, if they could only be bound for three years. 
 The papers on your table give both the memorials of the planters, and 
 the statement of the colonial department, that with the request of the 
 memorialists they had complied, and for the reasons assigned in the 
 memorial. My noble friend* says, in so many words, when an- 
 nouncing to the governor of Guiana the change made in the former 
 ordinance, that it was made because without it the importer of such 
 cargoes of apprentices would not find it worth his while to carry on 
 the traffic, and that no apprentices could be brought from the east. It 
 was therefore avowedly for the express purpose, and with the delibe- 
 rate intention of facilitating, of encouraging, of stimulating this traffic, 
 that the law was thus changed. It was with the view of enabling 
 those to carry on the traffic who otherwise could not do so, that the 
 
 * Lord Glenelg.
 
 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 477 
 
 order was framed and issued, being, I think, about the first after the 
 Queen's accession. This is the account given by the ministers them- 
 selves of their own conduct and of its motives. With their eyes open, 
 in league with the planters, and to give every facility for the importa- 
 tion of apprentices into Guiana, they adopted this measure. It is easy 
 indeed for them and their West Indian confederates to speak in soft 
 language of bringing over free men of introducing labourers of in- 
 creasing the number of hands employed of enabling the owners of 
 estates to find workmen as they wanted them. But 1 will tear away 
 all these flimsy disguises I will show you what it is that lurks under 
 these fair words I will demonstrate to you, and by facts rather than 
 by mere arguments, what is distinctly felt and loudly proclaimed by 
 every one of those whose acquaintance with the slave trade is the most 
 enlarged and the most minute, who have for half a century and more 
 been occupied in tracing it through all its forms, and pursuing it in 
 each disguise which it unceasingly assumes that nothing but slave 
 trading is, and that nothing but slave trading can be, the meaning and 
 the result of all that is thus doing. 
 
 And for this purpose 1 must first desire your lordships to accompany 
 me while I cast a retrospective glance over the sad history of that dread- 
 ful commerce, and to mark with me its origin and its progress in va- 
 rious parts of the globe. The task I know is painful: for we are going 
 to contemplate by far the blackest page in the annals of our race. 
 When the great satirist of England described our species, reduced by 
 his sarcastic fancy to a diminutive stature, as the most vile, cunning, 
 cruel, and detestable vermin that nature had suffered to crawl on and 
 to infest the face of the earth he was held to have presented an ex- 
 aggerated picture of human vices, by those who remembered that he 
 only professed to draw it from the court and the camp the perfidies 
 of politicians and the cruelties of soldiers. But if he had thrown into 
 the canvass the crimes of sordid avarice, combining in one all the 
 frauds that distinguish the one class with all the heartless cruelty 
 ascribed to the other; if he had darkened his picture with that worst 
 of all the monstrous births which that execrable vice has ever engen- 
 dered if his page had not only been disfigured with the details of 
 the wholesale cunning, and heartless ingratitude, and mean trickery, 
 that shine in the statesman's life, and the reckless and desperate feats 
 that mark the course of the warrior with blood, but been tinged with 
 the far deeper dye, of the African slave trade, combining within itself 
 all the most infernal lineaments of human guilt no tongue ever could 
 have complained of the exaggerated terms which Swift has employed, 
 and all would have confessed that the fidelity of truth had been the 
 guide, and not the gall of misanthropy the distiltment of his pen. 
 
 It seems strange that a traffic of all others the most unnatural and 
 the most revolting to our feelings should nevertheless be found in every 
 age and nation a practice among men. as if a propensity to it were in- 
 herent in the human constitution. Whether it be from the innate 
 thirst of gain, or the irrepressible love of dominion, or the deep-rooted 
 selfishness of our nature, anxious to save our own toil at another's
 
 478 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 expense certain it is that a traffic in the persons, liberties, labours, 
 and lives of our fellow-men, is to be found in one age or another of 
 society wherever men have existed. In the most savage state the 
 fruit of war is slavery, and captives become the property of the con- 
 querors, to be used and to be transferred and dealt in at his pleasure. 
 In the islands discovered by our illustrious navigator, and nnvisited 
 before by the foot of civilized man, slavery was found in various forms, 
 sometimes in the state of absolute bondage, sometimes of qualified vas- 
 salage, resembling our indentured apprenticeship; and for a limited 
 period of time as well as for life. Slavery, and a constant traffic in 
 slaves polluted the most refined states of antiquity; and in the days 
 when this Island formed but a remote and barbarous member of the 
 Roman world, our coasts were ravaged by the heathen slave trade, 
 as those of Africa are laid waste by the Christian commerce. Bristol, 
 by a singular coincidence, since the great emporium of the African 
 trade, and a principal wrong-doer in the modern enormity, was in 
 ancient times a great emporium of the Roman slave traffic, and a vic- 
 tim of the crimes she afterwards imitated in the days of her civility 
 and refinement. The feudal times in the western world were familiar 
 with slavery and slave dealing in all its forms. Every kind of bondage 
 was then known. There was the villein in gross, liable to be pos- 
 sessed and to be dealt in as a beast or any other chattel the villein 
 regardant, native, or ascriptus glebas, who could not be removed 
 from the place of his birth, but belonged to the land and to its owner. 
 The slave under a contract affixing terms and time, was also the growth 
 of the same system which made so little of human rights and feelings, 
 and gave to mere force so much dominion. The state of hired slavery 
 and of apprenticeship, or a mitigated slavery, arising out of contract 
 and for a consideration, whether of hire or of being taught some trade, 
 was a genuine produce of feudality and its servile tenures and oppres- 
 sive practices. 
 
 In the East the history of our race presents the same features, ex- 
 cepting that the mild influence of Christianity was there wanting, and 
 the perpetration of similar crimes was less inexcusable. To supply 
 those countries with slaves, the centre of Africa was traversed by cara- 
 vans, which carried her children into the more wealthy and civilized 
 regions of Asia. But the life of domestic slaves mitigated the lot of 
 those captives living in the houses of their masters, and sharing in 
 their comforts little exposed to extremes of climate hardly ever 
 doomed to severe toil often admitted to confidential stations not 
 unfrequently rising to even high employment they tasted as little of 
 the bitterness of slavery as is compatible with the mildest form of that 
 always bitter cup. But an event now happened which gave to slavery 
 an aspect far more hideous than it had ever before worn even in the 
 most barbarous regions, and in the darkest times. 
 
 For then succeeded things the record of which tinges with its deepest 
 shades the darkest page in the history of man; and yet that page was 
 next to the most brilliant by far of the eventful volume. As if to bring 
 down Spain from the summit of glory to which her fame had been
 
 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 479 
 
 elevated by the daring genius of Columbus, she plunged into an abyss 
 of crimes, and mingling all perfidy with all cruelty, the sordid thirst 
 for gold with the inhuman appetite for blood, enacted such scenes as 
 have called down upon the Spanish name the reprobation of the world, 
 and as the just execration of centuries has left still inadequately con- 
 demned. The simple, unoffending Indians were seized upon, dis- 
 tributed in lots like cattle, like cattle worked, but not spared like cattle; 
 for they were worked to death by their hard task-masters exacting far 
 more than their feeble frames could sustain. Nor was it till the total 
 extirpation of their race approached, and there seemed reason to fear 
 that the field could no longer be tilled nor the mine explored to allay 
 the fierceness of Spanish avarice, that a thought was given to their 
 sufferings, or the means sought for their relief. The substitution of 
 African for Indian labourers was the expedient resorted to by an un- 
 natural union between short-sighted philanthropy and clear-sighted 
 interest; and out of this union was engendered, and under this appel- 
 lation was cloaked, the monster which we have since learned to loathe 
 and detest as the African Slave Trade. The course taken then, at the 
 beginning of the sixteenth century, was the same with that which in 
 this country was pursued last year. Memorials were presented to the 
 Colonial-office in the Down ing-street of Madrid; representations were 
 made that the decrease of the Indians had begotten apprehensions of 
 the hands no longer sufficing for the work of the West Indian estates; 
 the necessity was urged of introducing into the West labourers from 
 the East, (as the process was termed in either case,) and the facilities 
 were asked, which government alone could give, to favour this impor- 
 tant operation, on which it was alleged the fortunes of the planters, 
 and the fate of the Colonial empire depended. I might easily, from 
 these papers before you, cull out the very expressions used in the cor- 
 respondence between the parties at Madrid. In neither the sixteenth 
 century nor the nineteenth, were the terms of slave trading, or anything 
 equivalent, employed: but in boih instances it was the supply of hands, 
 the introduction of labourers, the encouragement of emigrants, the 
 obtaining of workmen phrases which dance through these dispatches 
 in various collocation, and in apparently innocent array. To this 
 scheme a man lent himself whose name will descend to the latest ages 
 as a pattern of persevering and disinterested benevolence, and a monu- 
 ment of its uselessiiess, nay, its mischiefs, if the good will only exist, 
 and is not under the control of sound reason; a lasting proof, that, to 
 serve mankind, the act must keep pace with the intention. Rtitholo- 
 mew de Las Casas was that ill-judging and well-meaning philanthro- 
 pist, who, having devoted his blameless life to mitigating the sufferings 
 of the Indian, could see nothing but clnrity and kindness in relieving 
 him, by substituting the hardier African in his stead; and he joined 
 with the planters in the application to the Colonial Secretary of the 
 day, for so the Prime Minister of Spam may well be called, as Ameri- 
 can affairs formed the hulk of his administration. Hut in Cardinal 
 Ximeiies they found a statesman of equal humanity and wisdom; he 
 agreed with the benevolent "1'rotector of the Indians," in desiring to
 
 480, EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 relieve that injured race, but he said that he understood not the left- 
 handed, one-eyed philanthropy which would take the burthen from 
 the shoulders of one people to lay it still more heavily on those of 
 anolhcr; and that the speculation in African labourers should receive 
 no aid from him. This sagacious statesman, however, was now in 
 the extremity of old age; on his death the young Emperor took the 
 helm of government into his own hands; ignorant of Colonial affairs, 
 and surrounded by Flemish counsellors, who knew no better, he 
 listened to the plans of the speculators; he granted a patent for the 
 yearly introduction of 4000 Negroes, and thus laid the foundation of 
 that regular slave traffic which had before only occasionally and on a 
 very trifling scale been driven by a few Portuguese settled in the Bra- 
 zils. Thus was established that infernal policy which for above three 
 centuries has been the scourge of Africa. After it had desolated that 
 unhappy continent for many ages, by the blackest crimes ever com- 
 mitted systema.tically by men, there happily arose in this our country 
 a man, who, to the pure benevolence, the pious zeal, the inextinguish- 
 able love of his fellow-creatures, the indomitable perseverance of Las 
 Casas, united the only merit which was wanting in his character, a 
 strict love of justice and a sound judgment, the guide of his principles 
 and his conduct. Need I name him whose venerable form already 
 stands before you even in my feeble picture? Thomas Clarkson yet 
 lives, till lately happy in the reflection that he first brought to light the 
 horrors of the African traffic, but now tasting, with all the surviving 
 friends of the Abolition, the bitter mortification of finding that their 
 labours are to begin again, since the government has become the patron 
 of a new slave trade; and there is, I tell you plainly, but one opinion 
 and one feeling pervading every place where an Abolitionist is to be 
 found, and that is the opinion and the feeling which all have urged 
 me to lose not a moment in expressing to your lordships. With 
 Thomas Clarkson, and with his early associate, the learned, pious, and 
 truly humane Granville Sharpe, was joined soon after another and 
 their most powerful fellow-labourer, Mr. Wilberforce, whose name 
 will be revered as long as wisdom and eloquence attract the admira- 
 tion, or virtue and piety command the love of mankind. He it was 
 who brought the slave trade before Parliament for trial. And now 
 let us attend for a moment to the way in which the traffic was defended, 
 because we shall find the self-same topics adduced, nay, and the same 
 language used, as are now employed to defend the present measure. 
 
 The slave trader took high ground. He was not to be cowed by the 
 big words of the philanthropists; he would not be put down by sense- 
 less clamour, or silenced by the cry of mistaken humanity. The threats 
 of the Abolitionists should not drive him from his honest occupation, 
 nor the calumnies of his adversaries destroy an important branch of 
 trade which (and here I blush to say he did speak the truth,) the 
 legislature had sanctioned, and even encouraged. He would show 
 that the African was happier by far in the West Indies than at home; 
 that he was not stolen and carried over by force, but rescued from 
 murder, or, if not, from a more cruel slavery in Africa; and that this
 
 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 481 
 
 great branch of commerce, this importation of labourers, as it was 
 called, both in 17SS and 1838, proved no less beneficial to the continent 
 they were drawn from, than to the islands they were brought to culti- 
 vate. Thus General Tarleton asserted that the Africans themselves 
 had no objection to the slave trade complained that people were led 
 away by a mistaken humanity affirmed that the greatest misrepre- 
 sentations were abroad denied the miseries of the middle passage, in 
 which he said only five in a hundred died, while ten and a half per 
 cent, perished of our regiments on board of West Indian transports; 
 and cited, in proof of the happiness and comfort of the Negro slave 
 exceeding that of the English peasant, the authority of a governor, two 
 admirals, one captain, and a commodore all naval officers being, 
 through the whole controversy, friendly to the slave trade, and wil- 
 ling witnesses to the blessings of Negro slavery in the West Indies; 
 as military men, who saw far more of those blessings, were generally 
 observed to take the opposite side of the question. The report of 
 General Tarleton's speech I take from the Parliamentary History for 
 1791; but Sir William Young's, which follows, bears internal evidence 
 of having proceeded from his own pen, for I am very sure no reporter 
 in modern times ever used the words "hath" and "doth," as this 
 account of the worthy Baronet's speech does throughout. " Far be it 
 from me," says he, " to defend a traffic in human beings." But then 
 he did not regard the African commerce at all in that light. He denied 
 that a system of kidnapping supplied the slaves. They were captives 
 in war, or they sold themselves into bondage, or were men who must 
 perish in a famine, or be murdered by wholesale at the funeral of their 
 chiefs, but for the tender mercies of the Liverpool trader, who rescued 
 them from hunger or the sword. Then to cultivate the colonies with- 
 out this trade, was wholly impossible; the decrease was 2 or 2$ per 
 cent, a year in the slave population, the same proportion as I find now 
 given in the papers before us; but in one colony especially, this neces- 
 sity is so strongly represented, says Sir William, that he who runs may 
 read. And what colony, think your lordships, is that whose cry for 
 more hands new workmen a supply of labourers from the East 
 went up so loudly half a century ago? Why the very Colony of Guiana, 
 upon whose demand and for whose use the present Order in Council 
 is framed! But there is this difference, that in 1791 Africa alone was 
 required to supply the wants of Guiana; whereas we are now extend- 
 ing the drain to all the territories within the East India Company's 
 charter. General Phipps and others contended that all Africans were 
 slaves; that the traffic was supplied in almost every instance volunta- 
 rily, not by kidnapping; and that the Negro was far better off in our 
 islands than in his own country. It never struck these advocates of 
 crime that the poor African, who had never seen the ocean, could by 
 po possibility form an idea of the suffering he was about to endure, or 
 the scenes into which he was to be conveyed; and that to give him 
 any such notions would have been as difficult as to make him com- 
 prehend the transactions of another planet. Memorable were the 
 words of Mr. Pitt; memorable the sudden reply with which he swept 
 VOL. i. \ I
 
 482 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 all those sophistries away! Would that his awful voice could now 
 sound them in his successor's ears! Would to God that he were still 
 among us to make these walls echo the language of his indignation, 
 and chase away at once and for ever the miserable pretences, the 
 shadows of an excuse urged for these abominable proceedings! "Alas! 
 alas!" said that great man, "you make human beings the subjects of 
 your commerce, as if they were merchandise, and you refuse them the 
 benefit of the great law which governs all commercial dealings that 
 the supply must ever adapt itself to the demand." But on the slave 
 traders all appeals to reason or to feeling were thrown away. The 
 very next time that the subject was brought before Parliament, we 
 find them reiterating their assertions, that no wars and no kidnappings 
 were caused by the trade, and their contrasts of West Indian happi- 
 ness with African distress. Alderman Brook Watson, representing 
 the great city of London, was heard to avow, that were humanity con- 
 cerned in the abolition, he should at once support the measure, but it 
 was all the other way the Negro being removed from a worse to a 
 better state. Your lordships will give me credit for not adverting to a 
 topic urged, hardly to an expression used in these memorable debates 
 for the support of the slave trade, to which a match may not be found 
 in the papers before you upon the proposed Guiana importation. The 
 worthy magistrate's comparison is paralleled by a similar contrast in 
 the papers, between the state of the Coolies in Asia, and after their 
 removal to the Mauritius. 
 
 The alderman, too, like my noble friend* and his West Indian allies, 
 had no kind of objection to regulate the trade. No one who defended 
 it ever had. From 1788 to the period of its extinction, I never yet 
 found one, either of those engaged in it, or of those who defended it, 
 make the least objection to put it under as many regulations as the wit 
 of man could devise. And why? Because these men knew, what 
 we too know as to the new traffic sanctioned by government, that all 
 regulations must of necessity fail and go for nothing that all efforts 
 to prevent the abuses with which it is inseparably connected, of cruelty 
 and fraud, both in procuring and in conveying, and in employing the 
 slaves or apprentices, must infallibly fail, if the regulations were de- 
 vised by the wisdom of an angel. But again, they said in 17.91, as 
 they say now "You need not be disturbed as to treatment on the 
 voyage; trust to men's interests if you won't confide in their honesty 
 and humanity" and surely, said Lord Penryn, then member for 
 Liverpool, it is the trader's interest to carry over as many Negroes in 
 a healthy state as possible. Such was the reasoning by which we 
 were argued out of a belief even in the horrors of the middle passage; 
 such the grounds on which were denied all the atrocities the torments 
 the murders of which the slave-ship is universally the scene and 
 on which those men expected to make the world reject the frightful 
 history of those prodigious crimes, as the fabrications of calumny, or 
 the creatures of a distempered imagination. I shall presently show 
 
 * Lord Glenelg.
 
 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 483 
 
 you that already the new traffic encouraged by onr government, and 
 incapable of being driven at all without its help, has led to scenes of 
 nearly the same description, which before long will almost equal the 
 horrors of the middle passage itself. 
 
 The same advocates of the traffic have recorded their defence of 
 slavery and slave trading in their works. I have this morning refreshed 
 my recollection of Sir William Young's writings, by reading his West 
 Indian Tour, undertaken immediately after the debate of which I have 
 given you an abstract. In St. Vincent's, he says to a friend, the day 
 of his landing, that far from the slaves being an oppressed race, the 
 proudest human being he ever beheld was a Negro woman. After 
 passing the winter months there, he exclaims, " All you know in 
 England of jolly Christmas falls very far short of the Negro's three 
 days' Christinas in this Island." He visits a slave ship just arrived, 
 and vows he can see nothing unpleasant belonging to it. The slaves 
 laughed and joked with him, he says, like a Davus of Terence. In- 
 deed he is fond of adorning the West Indies with classical allusions, 
 having himself written a very poor history of Athens. The squares 
 and streets remind him of the Forum and great ways of old Rome, 
 with groups of slaves here and there. He goes to Antigua, and there 
 the slaves dance with more spirit and grace than the most fashionable 
 circles in England. In Tobago it is still the same happy scene. " The 
 Negroes seem treated like the planter's favourite children." I dare 
 to say in one respect the love of the parent was conspicuous enough, 
 I mean in not sparing the rod. 
 
 Such were the pictures of slavery comforts, of Negro happiness, 
 with which the patience of the country was worn out. and the reason 
 of Parliament beguiled for many a long year; and such the arguments 
 by which men were persuaded that there was something wholly un- 
 reasonable in the objections we were always urging against wholesale 
 robbery and cruelty and murder. Nevertheless, our strange and para- 
 doxical opinions daily gained ground. The carrying over 70 or 80,000 
 human beings from their own country to labour in America, of whom 
 above 15.000 were brought to our settlements, began to be universally 
 reprobated. Men came to feel that such a traffic could no longer bo 
 suffered, whether the objects of it were termed labourers or appren- 
 tices, or more fairly and honestly slaves. We were no longer described 
 as visionaries and theorists. Our statements were no more regarded 
 as fictions or calumnies; and at length, in spite of every attempt to 
 ward of!' the blow, the doom of the traffic was pronounced to the 
 immortal honour of thn Cabinet of IfiOO, with which it may soem 
 unaccountable, but is yet true, that some of the present government 
 were closely connected. Lord Grey, in concert with Mr. Wilberforco, 
 brought in the Abolition Hill and thus performed what I really think, 
 and I believe my noble and most valued friend himself considers, the 
 most glorious act of his long, useful, and brilliant public life. It was 
 passed by the greatest majority ever known on a great measure long 
 the subject of controversy. The Commons, by sixteen to one, .sealed 
 the fate of the slave trade.
 
 484 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 The predictions of the planters that the Negroes must decrease con- 
 tinued to haunt them for some years, and various schemes were pro- 
 posed for keeping up the numbers of labourers. This led Mr. Barham 
 in 181 1 to propose the introduction of free labourers from Asia, and 
 his motion forms the next event of importance in this history. He 
 was one of the very best masters and most successful planters in An- 
 tigua; and his proposal was rested wholly upon motives of kindness 
 towards the slaves. These being, as he thought, reduced in numbers 
 while there was the same work to perform, in consequence of the 
 embarrassments of West Indian property not permitting the produce 
 to be diminished which went to satisfy creditors, there seemed reason 
 to apprehend the effects of the Negro labour being so much increased. 
 The reception of this plan in Parliament was very remarkable. Mr. 
 Anthony Browne, then and now the respectable agent for Antigua, 
 cautioned the House against being led astray by its feelings in behalf 
 of the slaves, to sanction an impracticable and visionary scheme. 13 ut 
 Mr. Stephen gave it his decided opposition upon higher grounds. 
 Now, than Mr. Stephen's, there can no higher authority be cited on 
 slavery and slave trading, and everything connected with these sub- 
 jects. He had long made them his study; he had been at all times 
 the zealous co-operator with his friend and brother-in-law, Mr. Wil- 
 berforce, in the Abolition committee; he had passed the best years of 
 his life in a slave colony, St. Kitts; and since his return to Europe, he 
 had never ceased to watch over every branch of the great questions 
 connected with West Indian affairs. His resistance to the proposition 
 of introducing free labourers into the colonies, as it was called then 
 and is called now, was grounded upon the injuries thus certain to be 
 inflicted upon the people whom it was proposed to transport from. 
 Asia; and Mr. Huskisson adopting the same views, opposed the pro- 
 ject upon the same grounds. An accident prevented Mr. Canning 
 from attending this debate, as absence from town upon the circuit kept 
 me also away from it. I felt exceedingly anxious when the subject 
 was announced, and when I saw that eminent person after the com- 
 mittee had been appointed, I found he viewed the subject in the same 
 light with Mr. Stephen and myself. No, no, said he it is enough to 
 have desolated Africa, without introducing this pest into Asia too. 
 
 The next circumstance to which we must look in pursuing this his- 
 torical retrospect, is the traffic which for some years has been going 
 on between India arid the Mauritius; for it is to the alleged success of 
 this experiment that we are desired to look by the patrons of the new 
 scheme the government and the Guiana planters. I own that I re- 
 gard whatever relates to the Mauritius with extreme jealousy in all 
 slave questions. There is no quarter of the globe where more gross 
 abuses have been practised nay, more flagrant violations of the law, 
 from the eager appetite for new hands which the fertile land excites 
 in the uncleared districts of that island. It was in 1811 that I had the 
 happiness of passing the act through Parliament, declaring slave 
 trading to be a felony, and awarding to it the punishment of transpor- 
 tation. Some years after it was made capital. Yet in spite of this
 
 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 485 
 
 penal sanction, the Mauritius planters were audacious enough to in- 
 troduce, by slave traffic, so many Africans, that Sir George Murray, 
 when secretary for the colonies some time back, admitted twenty-five 
 thousand at least to have been thus brought thither from the coasts of 
 Africa. No less than twenty-five thousand capital felonies had thus 
 been perpetrated in the course of a few years by those sordid and 
 greedy speculators. The position of the island is singularly adapted 
 for carrying on this detested commerce. Near the continent, and near 
 that part of it where we have no settlement, and keep hardly any 
 cruisers, no effective check upon such operations can ever be main- 
 tained, if the authorities in the island itself do not exercise the most 
 vigilant attention; and there is but too much reason to suspect, from 
 what came out in Mr. Buxton's committee, that instead of watching, 
 they connived at one time, while some high in office encouraged the 
 offenders, and even partook in the fruits of their crimes. Doubtless, 
 if the Guiana order in council is suffered to subsist, a like privilege 
 will be extended to this island. But in either case the African coast 
 is under the operation of this new traffic. That order comprehends it 
 in terms the most distinct. Nor does it only open the trade to 
 
 " them that sail 
 
 Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past 
 Mosambique" 
 
 It stretches along Sofala, and to Guardafui and Arabia comprising 
 all the Asian Islands 
 
 "Ceylon and Timor, Ternate and Cadore." 
 
 It then includes the whole coast of India, and all the regions of that 
 vast domain, stretching 
 
 " O'er hills where flocks do feed, beyond the springs 
 Of Ganges and Hydaspes, Indian streams/' 
 
 All those plains and mountains all those ports, and bays, and creeks 
 long lines of sea-beach without a fort, or a witness, a magistrate to 
 control, or an eye to see what is done from Madagascar to the Red 
 Sea from the Arabian Gulf along Malabar, to Travancore, thence 
 from Comorin to the mouths of the Ganges, and of all the unknown 
 and unnamed streams lhat water the peninsula and flow into the In- 
 dian Ocean. It is in such vast and such desolate regions that we are 
 to be told this order will never be abused, and none be taken by force, 
 nor any circumvented by fraud. When in the heart of Europe, with 
 all men's eyes to watch him and his agents, the King of Prussia could 
 drive his trade of a crimp, and fill his army with recruits spirited away 
 from the banks of the Rhine populous, civilized countries, enjoying 
 the blessings of regular government, the protection of a vigilant police, 
 and entertaining ambassadors at the court of Berlin when thai mo- 
 narch could, in such countries, and in the face of day, carry oil the 
 priest at the altar, and the professor at his desk, from the countries
 
 486 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 on the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Oder, and these reverend and 
 learned recruits were, for months afterwards, found carrying his fire- 
 locks, and serving in his ranks how can the folly be sufficiently de- 
 rided which represents it as difficult to abuse this abominable regula- 
 tion, and make it the cover of common slave trading, in the remote 
 desolate countries watered by the Niger, and the yet more deserted 
 shores of eastern Africa, through which nameless rivers flow into the 
 sea? The order was passed without a single regulation being sub- 
 joined, either here or in the East Indies, to prevent such abuses, or to 
 limit their amount. But to speak of regulations in such circumstances, 
 is too absurd. What regulations can the wit of man devise which 
 can have any effect at all? Nay, in the very places where the abuse 
 is most likely to occur, you have not the shadow of authority to make 
 rules. How can you legislate for the slave dealers on the eastern 
 coast, north of the Cape? Yet there the worst branches of the old 
 slave trade at this moment exist. I saw only yesterday a person who 
 had been present at the capture of a Portuguese slave ship, which had 
 sailed from the coast of Zanguebar with eight hundred Negroes on 
 board, and lost above two hundred before she reached her port of 
 destination in the Brazils. Let it not then be said that regulations 
 may be devised for preventing abuse. But none have been attempted 
 or thought of. The wretched beings, apprentices you calUhem, are 
 to be carried without a word said specifying the tonnage regulating 
 the space for accommodation between the decks fixing the propor- 
 tion of water to drink, or provision to sustain life ordering medical 
 attendance directing the course of the voyage or limiting its dura- 
 tion. The order was issued here in July, before it could possibly be 
 known that any law had been promulgated in Bengal for the date 
 of the Bengal regulation was May 1, and it was sent over on the 7th 
 of June. That regulation, too, was and still is, confined to the presi- 
 dency of Fort William. Nay more, it is altogether silent on every 
 one of the important particulars which I have mentioned, and merely 
 prescribes in vague and general terms that the parties interested in 
 disobeying it, and on whose conduct it sets no kind of watch, shall 
 attend to the comforts of the crew and cargo. 
 
 Contrast now this legislation of the Crown with the enactments of 
 the Parliament when giving laws, I will not say in part materd, but 
 on things incomparably less demanding legislative care, because hardly 
 liable to any of the like abuses. A band of emigrants are about to 
 leave their native country, and seek their fortunes in the western 
 world. They are civilized men well acquainted with all that regards 
 their voyage and destination generally well informed nay, com- 
 pared with the Coolies of Bengal, or the Negroes of the Mozambique 
 coast, I have a right to say accomplished persons. In the Thames, or 
 the Mersey, or the Severn, the gallant ship that is to convey them 
 forth is ready her crew on board her stores taken in her anchor 
 a-peak her sails unfurled. Every passenger i: there, and as the 
 favouring breeze sounds through the cordage, all are more anxious 
 to go than the captain of the vessel to make sail. Shall she go? The
 
 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 487 
 
 foretop-sail dangles from the mast in token of her readiness to drop 
 down the river, if she only may. Shall she go? No. The act of 
 Parliament interposes. The act of Parliament says, No. The act of 
 Parliament commands, under penalties which may not be risked, that 
 she shall stay and be examined. " Come ashore thou captain," says 
 the law of the land, "and show thyself worlhy to take charge of so 
 many British subjects on the ocean. Come ashore you crew, and 
 muster, that the equipment be seen sufficient. Come ashore thou 
 surgeon, and prove, by the testimonials of Surgeon's Hall, the requi- 
 site fitness to be entrusted with the health of this emigrant people!" 
 But at least those emigrants may remain on board. They are of 
 mature age fully aware of their own intentions well fitted to look 
 after their own interests, and guard themselves against all fraud. 
 They may keep in the berths where they are counting every minute 
 an hour that is lost of the propitious wind which shall waft them to 
 the wished-for region of all their hopes. They surely may remain in 
 the ship. Again, the act of Parliament says, No. Still it calls aloud, 
 " Come on shore, you emigrants, that you may be mustered, and the 
 King's officer who marshals you examining into each man's case, may 
 ascertain that none are carried forth against their will, and that no 
 fraud, nor circumvention, nor delusive misrepresentation has been, 
 practised upon any." And whence all this jealousy, this excessive 
 care, which seems even to protect men from the consequences of their 
 own imprudence, and almost interferes with their personal liberty in 
 order to make their maltreatment impossible? It is because the law 
 was framed by wise and provident men, who had well weighed the 
 importance of throwing every obstacle in the way of sordid cunning, 
 and had maturely calculated the hazards of deception being practised, 
 and abuses of every kind creeping into a traffic so little in the ordinary 
 course of human affairs as the removing masses of the people from 
 one hemisphere to the other. It is because the laws so joalously 
 guard the safety of the subject, that they will take every elaborate 
 precaution to exclude even the possibility of a single person being 
 entrapped, or inveigled, or spirited away, lost among a crowd of emi- 
 grants, whose general information about all they are doing whose 
 general design to go and of their own free will to go and with their 
 eyes open to go no man who ever made these laws ever doubted for 
 an instant. Therefore are all these regulations prescribed, with the 
 additional penally of no less than 500 for any passenger taken on 
 board in any place where no custom-house stands, and no officers are 
 ready to perform the examination lest peradventure a single Knglish- 
 mnn may by some improbable combination of accidents be kidnapped 
 and carried, innocently or ignoranily, into a foreign land. And then 
 comes my noble friend,* with his order in council his crown-made 
 law to encourage the shipment not of enlightened Englishmen, but 
 simple Hindoos and savage Africans, in distant, desert coasts, in remote 
 creeks and bays of the sea, laid down in no charts, bearing no name, 
 
 Lord Glenelg.
 
 488 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 at the mouth of rivers which drain unknown regions far inland, and 
 carry down their streams the barbarous natives to an ocean which 
 they had never beheld. Knowing the watchful care, the scrupulous 
 and suspicious jealousy of the English law made by Parliament on all 
 that relates to the emigration of our own civilized people knowing 
 that the shipper would be ruined who should suffer an Englishman 
 to embark of his own free will, and more desirous to go than he to 
 take him, where there was no custom-house officer to watch the ope- 
 ration my noble friend makes his colonial law with the avowed pur- 
 pose of enabling thousands arid thousands of simple, ignorant, unci- 
 vilized men to be taken in any speculating trader's vessel, in obscure, 
 nameless places, where, instead of revenue establishments and public 
 offices being stationed, the footstep of no European, save the slave 
 trader and the crimp, ever was known to have trodden since the cre- 
 ation. The law made by Parliament suspects all engaged in the trade 
 of emigration, even from the city of London; and the lawgivers have 
 framed its enactments on the assumption that abuse and offence must 
 come. The law of the Colonial office suspect no one, even of those who 
 navigate the Indian seas, and sweep the coasts of Southern Africa it 
 proceeds upon the assumption that neither abuse nor offence can ever 
 come where the temptation is the strongest, and the difficulty of pre- 
 vention the most insurmountable. The Parliament adds regulation to 
 regulation for securing safety, where all men's eyes are directed and 
 nothing can be done unseen. The colonial office despises all regula- 
 tions, and trusts the slave trader and the crimp, where no eye but his 
 own can see, and no hand is uplifted to restrain his arm. 
 
 But let us turn towards the place of destination, and see what the 
 consequences will be of this scheme, even if nothing illegal shall be 
 done if the most strictly correct course of conduct be pursued by 
 every one engaged in the new traffic if nothing whatever is done 
 but introducing a number of apprenticed labourers into the West 
 Indies, all of whom go there knowingly and willingly. Let us see 
 the consequences to the Negroes who are already there, who are now 
 apprentices working partly for wages, and whose complete emanci- 
 pation is approaching. On the first of August, 1840, as the law now 
 stands on the first of August, 1S38, as 1 fervently hope the whole 
 of these poor people will have the command of their own time, and 
 the right to derive from their own labour its just reward. Then see 
 how you are treating them! Just at the moment when their volun- 
 tary industry should begin to benefit them, and the profits of their toil 
 no longer belong to their masters just as they are about to earn a 
 pittance by the sweat of their brow, wherewithal to support them- 
 selves and their families just at that instant comes your order in 
 council to prepare for them a competition, with crowds of labourers 
 brought over by wholesale from the east, and able by their habits to 
 work for little and live upon nothing. You let in upon them a supply 
 of hands sufficient to sluice the labour-market and reduce its gains to 
 the merest trifle, by this forced and unnatural emigration thither of men 
 habituated all their lives to subsist upon a handful of rice and a pinch
 
 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 489 
 
 of pepper. Can anything be conceived more cruel and unjust? This 
 is the avowed object of the whole proceeding. It is stated in express 
 terms by the planters, whose representations obtained the order in 
 council "The emancipated slaves," say they, (p. 25,) "are very 
 likely to form combinations for the purpose of restricting the ordinary 
 and necessary periods of labour, as well as to compel the planters to 
 pay them wages at rates much above their means and ability to com- 
 ply with." 
 
 Do, I beseech you, my lords, let us make the case our own. Sup- 
 pose such an experiment were tried for lowering the wages in Kent, or 
 Essex, or Sussex, by the planters there, who are always complaining of 
 their high rents and low profits. Suppose in that county, happy under 
 the mild government of my noble friend,* the rumour should spread of 
 3000 or 4000 Coolies being expected there, men who could work for 
 twopence and threepence a day, and be better off than in their own 
 country that the Colonial office were petitioned by the Sussex farmers 
 to give such facilities as were necessary to make this importation prac- 
 ticable that the farmers were persuading the Secretary of State and 
 his Under Secretaries, of the benefit this help must prove to the over- 
 worked day labourers of the county and that the measures required 
 by the speculators were about to be adopted so as to make the opera- 
 tion feasible I won't say that the Sussex peasantry would instantly 
 meet and mob and riot and threaten the castle of my noble friend, and 
 the office in Downing-street; but I venture to assert that my noble 
 friend, with a train of all his deputy lieutenants, and magistrates, and 
 squires,and clergy, wouldspeedily darken the doors of that department, 
 and that to issue the dreaded order would become an absolute impossi- 
 bility. Nothing could ever make its issuing possible but itsbeing secretly 
 agreed upon and passed without any publication in the Gazette; and 
 as soon as its existence became known, its recall would be matter of 
 perfect certainty. Surely, surely, the unhappy African has been treat- 
 ed at all times as never race under the sun was suffered by Providence 
 to be treated. All men and all things conspire to oppress him. After 
 enduring for ages the most bitter miseries of slavery, privations un- 
 exampled, hardships intolerable, unrequited toil, he is at last relieved 
 from his heavy burthen, and becomes a free labourer, ready to work 
 for wages on his own account. Straightway he is met by myriads of 
 other labourers, not naturally belonging to the soil or climate, and 
 habituated to the lowest hire and the scantiest and the worst suste- 
 nance; and after having been so long kept out of the hire he earned by 
 the bondage of his condition, he is now defrauded of it by the craft of 
 his former master, in revenge for his tyranny being at an end. 
 
 But this is the very least part of the evil inflicted by the measure; 
 this is taking the argument on the lowest ground. Look to the inevita- 
 ble consequences of the system upon the Eastern coast of Africa, and 
 all our Indian dominions. The language used by its patrons and their 
 abettors in Downing-street, is just what used to be heard in the days 
 
 * The Duke of Richmond.
 
 490 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 of open slave trading. " We wish to bring over a number of labour- 
 people from Asia," says one planter " We contemplate drawing a 
 supply of labourers for our estates," say others respectable men, 
 whom I personally know. It is " the engaging of labourers," accord- 
 ing to the President of the Board of Control, under whose protection 
 India is placed; while the Colonial Secretary, under whose care all 
 our other settlements repose, speaks of the "Emigration from India" 
 and " East India Emigrants." The voyage which brings these poor 
 creatures from the indolence of their native plains to the hard and 
 unwholesome toils of Guiana, can hardly yet be described as proving 
 an agreeable passage, for time has not yet been allowed to carry any 
 over. But the experiment already made in the Mauritius furnishes 
 the means of commendation, and that passage has been distinctly 
 termed by the schemers one of no suffering, but of sufficient ease and 
 comfort to the cargoes. So they have described the change of the 
 Coolie's situation as beneficial to him. " They are represented," it is 
 said, (p. 23,) "to be much pleased with their new situation, it being 
 considered by them as more desirable and beneficial than that from 
 which they have been removed" in the very language, your lordships 
 observe, of the slave traders and their defenders fifty years ago. The 
 experience of the Mauritius planters is in these papers cited at large. 
 and paraded through many a long page, to show how happy is the lot 
 of the transported labourer in the bondage of that blissful land. The 
 queries sent to various proprietors are given at length, with the an- 
 swers returned by them. The fourth question, as to the comforts and 
 happiness of the imported apprentices, is answered alike by all but 
 one, from whom the truth escapes. The others say, the men are quite 
 contented and happy, exactly as Sir William Young found the African 
 slaves in the Leeward Islands. They represent, too, the Mauritius 
 Negroes as quite pleased with their new helpmates; and in short, 
 never was such a picture of felicity in that island, since those halcyon 
 days when 25,000 capital felonies were perpetrated by the importation 
 of as many labourers days which it was feared had been gone never 
 to return, but which this order in council fills the Mauritian bosom 
 with hopes of once more living to see restored. That one planter, 
 however, gives a somewhat different account of the matter. "Has 
 any feeling of uneasiness and discontent been observable among the 
 Indian labourers on your estate as arising out of separation from their 
 families, or from any other similar cause?" The answer is signed 
 Bickagee; and this name seems to indicate a Malabar origin; so that 
 probably the reason why the account is so different from that of other 
 proprietors may be, that Bickagee could converse with the poor Indians 
 in their own language, as another witness who gives a similar account 
 certainly could. The answer is "Yes; and for these reasons In 
 their country they live happy and comfortable with their wives and 
 families, on three or four rupees a month. They engage to leave their 
 native country on a small increase of salary, say five rupees and 
 rations, in the hope of receiving the same comfort here, but experience 
 has proved the reverse. Uneasiness and discontent arise from these
 
 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 491 
 
 privations, besides their being deprived of the holidays their religion 
 entitles them to." (p. 83.) So Mr. Scott, a gentleman resident in 
 Bengal, and acquainted with the people, their language, and habits, 
 plainly says, that " with very rare exceptions, he doubts if there are 
 any who congratulate themselves on the bargain they have made." 
 (125.) He makes an observation of much wisdom upon the inefficacy 
 of all regulations respecting treatment, and of all conditions in contracts 
 for apprenticeship. " The main result of my inquiry," says he, "leads 
 me to the conclusion, that the condition of the labourer practically 
 depends on the individual character of his employer, and that the 
 terms of the agreements are trifling compared with the spirit in which 
 they are interpreted." 
 
 But let us look to the far more pressing consideration of the way in 
 which these poor people are brought over from their own country; for 
 upon that, two very important matters arise out of these papers, and 
 especially Mr. Scott's report. I must, however, first turn aside for a 
 moment to show your lordships that the abuses of the measure had not 
 been unforseen. My noble friend himself at one time was awake to 
 this important consideration. He could see it in the measures of others, 
 but in his own, all such suspicions are lulled asleep. When he first 
 received the ordinance made by the Court of Policy in Demerara, he 
 at once warned them against letting it become the cover for slave deal- 
 ing, describing it as essential that no apprentice from Africa should be 
 brought over. His words are remarkable, and I apply them distinctly 
 to the measure of my noble friend himself, now under your considera- 
 tion. " If, (said he, in a despatch dated October 3, 1836, p. 11,) labour- 
 ers should be recruited on any part of the African coast, the conse- 
 quence would inevitably be direct encouragement to the slave trade in 
 the interior, and a plausible, if not a just, reproach against this country 
 of insincerity in our professions on that subject." A plausible, if not 
 a just reproach ! Truly the reproach is still more just than it is plausi- 
 ble; and so my noble friend's colleague,* under whom the foreign 
 concerns of this country flourish as much as our colonial affairs do under 
 himself, will find in the first attempt which he may make to treat for 
 the abolition of the foreign slave traffic. I can tell him that far less 
 ingenuity than falls to the lot of Spanish, and above all Portuguese 
 negotiators, will be required to shut his mouth with this Order in Coun- 
 cil, as soon as he tries to open it against the Portuguese or Spanish 
 enormities which all England, and both Houses of its Parliament, are 
 vociferously urging him to put down. They will hold, and truly, that 
 they have a just right to tax us with insincerity, and with fraud and 
 dishonesty, if, while we affect to reprobate slave trading in them under 
 its own name, we continue to carry it on ourselves, under false pre- 
 tences, and by a false and borrowed title. As long as Africans are 
 brought over under the vile order by the name of apprenticed 
 labourers, it is still more just than it is plausible to accuse us of that 
 insincerity and those frauds; and how docs my noble friendt escape 
 
 * Lord Palmerston. f Lord Glcncljj.
 
 492 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 the charge? By a regulation which he adds to the ordinance, and 
 which I pledge myself instantly to demonstrate does nothing whatever 
 to prevent the very thing here denounced. Nothing of the kind, abso- 
 lutely nothing has been done by the additional provision of my noble 
 friend. For what is that provision? You will find it in page twenty- 
 one, and it only makes indentures of apprenticeship void if executed 
 in Africa, or the adjacent islands inhabited wholly or in part by the 
 Negro race. Why, what signifies that? Who is prevented by such a 
 flimsy folly as that article, from carrying over as many Africans as he 
 pleases, and in whatever way he likes? To escape this most ridiculous 
 check, the slave trader (my noble friend himself calls him by this name) 
 has only to take the Negroes on board of the slave ships, and there 
 execute their indentures, or to Brazil, or to Cuba, or to Monte Video, 
 or, indeed, to Guiana itself; and then he complies with the conditions 
 of this inconceivable restriction, and imports as many Negroes as he 
 pleases, and can afford to buy. To be sure, there is added another 
 provision of the same notable kind, requiring that all contracts be made 
 and witnessed before two justices, or, it is added, magistrates. What 
 then? The slave trader has only to carry his prey, his human victims, 
 to the Mauritius, where he will find two, ay, twenty, magistrates full 
 ready to help him, and to do anything for the encouragement of the 
 business there most popular, the slave trade; or if it be the western 
 coast of Africa which he has been desolating with his traffic, under the 
 encouragement of this Order in Council, he has only to touch at the 
 Brazils, where all slave traders are at home; oral Monte Video, where 
 the governor took a bribe of 10,000 to allow, in the teeth of the 
 Spanish law, two thousand slaves, which he termed, in the language 
 of these papers, and this Order in Council, labourers, to be introduced; 
 or at Cuba, where the governor does not suffer the sailing of slave ships 
 to be announced in the newspapers, for fear of our cruisers being 
 thereby warned and stopping them. In all these slave trading ports, 
 justices, and magistrates, and governors too, will ever be ready to wit- 
 ness indentures for Guiana, and make this most ludicrous provision 
 utterly void and of no effect. 
 
 But the despatches of my noble friend are not the only documents 
 which show that the abuses of this intercourse have been alluded to 
 before now though no precautions whatever have been adopted to 
 prevent them. Some few years ago, a Mr. Letord propounded to the 
 governorof the Mauritius a plan for importing twenty thousand African 
 labourers, as he called them, in the phraseology of the Order in Coun- 
 cil so familiar to all slave traders. He was to obtain them by negotia- 
 tion with the chiefs of the country, and to apprentice them for a limited 
 time. His plan was circumstantially and elaborately framed, and 
 reminds me of what a learned friend of mine, now Advocate-general 
 in Bengal,* used to say at Guildhall, on such estimates, that with a 
 little pen and ink he would undertake by figures to pay the national 
 debt in half an hour. The ingenious projector, (who I understand was 
 
 * Mr. Pearson.
 
 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 493 
 
 one of those most deeply concerned in the Mauritian slave trading 
 some time ago, and therefore well versed in the subject,) gave his plan 
 the name of "Prqjet d'Emancipation Africane" for he was of course 
 to liberate all the slaves he bought of the chiefs, or kidnapped on his 
 own account, and to convert them, as the plan of our government pro- 
 poses, into Indentured Apprentices. Your lordships smile at the plan 
 and its title, because you see through the trick at once so did the 
 worthy Governor General Nicolay whose answer was short whose 
 refusal was flat and unqualified just such as the government at home 
 should have given to the Letords of Guiana. He said he had read the 
 details of the plan " with much interest, and felt bound to give it his 
 unqualified refusal, considering it, however speciously coloured, as 
 neither more nor less than a renewal of the slave trade, and therefore 
 entirely inadmissible," p. 24. And so to be sure it was. Your lord- 
 ships saw through the cunning trick and its flimsy disguise at once, 
 and you smiled when I stated it. But I now ask if there is one single 
 tittle of the plan thus instantly seen through, which differs from the 
 present project for Guiana? I defy the most ingenious, subtle, and 
 astute person who now hears me to show any one thing that could 
 have been done under Letord's plan, denounced by Sir W. Nicolay, 
 as common slave trading in other words felony which may not be 
 done exactly in the same manner if this Order in Council is suffered to 
 continue in operation. My noble friend will answer me and defend 
 or explain his measure. I call upon him to point out, if he can, one 
 single particular in which the project rejected as felonious by Governor 
 Nicolay, with the entire approval of the government at home, differs 
 from the project aided and sanctioned by that same government, and 
 under their auspices inflicted upon Africa and Asia too, for the benefit 
 of the Guiana planters and their slave trading captains. My noble 
 friend is now challenged to this comparison, and having given him 
 ample notice, and in very distinct terms, I expect I am entitled to 
 expect that he shall point out wherein the two schemes differ, and 
 what act of slave trading that is of felony can be perpetrated under 
 the one, which may not, with the most perfect ease and safety, be per- 
 petrated under the other. 
 
 Here, my lords, I might rest, and safely rest, my case. For I have 
 shown to demonstration not only that abuse is inevitable that no 
 regulation can prevent it, but also that none have ever been attempted 
 if I have further shown, out of my noble friend's own mouth, and 
 that of the Mauritius government, whose proceedings he wholly ap- 
 proved and adopted, that without precautions, which never have been 
 taken or thought of, the project is one of disguised, and but thinly 
 disguised, slave trading: surely I am not bound to go further, and 
 prove that already, and while in its infancy, the results pYoved to be 
 inevitable have actually flowed from it; that kidnapping lias filled 
 our vessels, and that waste of life, and misery has been endured on 
 the middle passage. Nevertheless, I am prepared to prove this like- 
 wise, superfluous though it be; and thus to remove the very last vcs- 
 VOL. i. 42
 
 494 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 t!ge of doubt, to preclude every opening through which a cavil can 
 enter into the discussion. 
 
 I here again revert, in the first place, to the report of the only per- 
 sons, or one of the only two persons, who were capable of giving in- 
 formation on the subject, by their knowledge of the language in which 
 alone these poor Hindoos can converse. Mr. Scott gives this truly 
 remarkable statement; his words are few, but the single sentence speaks 
 volumes. " They all stated (says he, page 125) that they left Cal- 
 cutta under the impression that they were going to the Company Ra- 
 bustie (Company's Village), the name by which the Mauritius is 
 designated" but by whom? In the vernacular tongue of India? By 
 all men in common parlance? Oh no, nothing of the kind! But "by 
 the agents in India!" by the slave trader's agents; by his crimps, his 
 inveiglers, his kidnappers. Mr. Scott adds, " How far the term was 
 complimentary or compulsory I cannot say;" so that he has his sus- 
 picions of these poor ignorant people being made to believe that they 
 might be compelled to go to the Mauritius as a part of the company's 
 territory. He adds this remarkable observation: "While I make no 
 charge of misrepresentation, I ain bound to acknowledge the difficulty 
 of correctly and intelligibly describing an island in the Indian Ocean 
 to a person who had never seen the sea, or knew what an island was." 
 Some there may doubtless be who will say, that this representation of 
 the Mauritius, where the powers of Leadenhall-street have not one 
 servant, and possess not one yard of ground, being a village of the 
 company, was plausibly rather than justly made. For my part I hold 
 it to have been wickedly, deceitfully, fraudulently, crimpingly, kid- 
 nappingly done, and with the purpose of inveigling, and cheating, and 
 carrying away the natives of Asia, after the most approved practices 
 of slave trading, in their nefarious proceedings on the African coast. 
 My noble friend must have turned his attention to this subject as well 
 as Mr. Scott. He long presided at the India Board he had under 
 his protection the natives of the country, to whom he and his re- 
 spected family have long been the friends; he had studied their tem- 
 per and their habits from his youth; he had an acquaintance possessed 
 by few, an hereditary acquaintance with all that belongs to this subject; 
 and, before he issued an order for the emigration of these poor crea- 
 tures, he must have well weighed all its consequences, having regard 
 to their nature, and their knowledge. This matter is not one that arises 
 indirectly, or unexpectedly, or by any unforeseen accident, out of the 
 scheme. On the front of that scheme it is graven in legible letters; it 
 is a plan for enabling planters in the west to import natives of the 
 east into their colonies. Then my noble friend must have often asked 
 himself the natural and indeed unavoidable question which I now ask 
 him, as Mr. Scott has suggested it from a knowledge of Indian affairs 
 far less extensive than his own What hopes can we entertain of 
 ever being able to make a Hindoo, a Coolie from the inland territory 
 of the company, a poor native who has never seen the ocean, or any 
 sheet of water larger than the tank of his village, or the stream in 
 which he bathes comprehend the nature of a ship and a voyage, the
 
 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 495 
 
 discomforts of a crowded hold, the sufferings of four months at sea, the 
 labours of a sugar plantation, the toils of hoeing, and cutting, and sugar 
 boiling under a tropical sun toils under which even the hardy Negro is 
 known to pine, and which must lay the feeble and effeminate Asiatic 
 prostrate in the scorched dust? Bui will my noble friend really take 
 upon him to say that one single Hindoo is embarked for Guiana, who 
 can form the idea of what the voyage alone must expose him to? We 
 are here not left without proof. Experience lias already pronounced 
 upon the voyage from Hindostan to the Mauritius; these papers paint 
 it as a worthy companion for the middle passage. I hold in my hand 
 the despatch from the Mauritius government of April last, in which 
 three vessels are said to have carried over, one of them two hundred 
 and twenty-four, the other, two hundred, and the third, seventy-two 
 labourers, as you are pleased to term, what I plainly name slaves. 
 Each had a full cargo of rice besides so that the despatch says, they 
 could not have proper accommodation for the Indians, nor protection 
 from the weather, nor had any one of the three a medical officer. 
 The William Wilson, out of two hundred and twenty-four, lost thirty- 
 one on the voyage a sacrifice to the pestilential hold in which they 
 were compelled to breathe. The Adelaide, still worse, lost twenty-six 
 out of seventy-two between a third and a half in five or six weeks. 
 The statements I have given from the slave trader's arguments in 
 17S8 and 1701 were absurd enough when they represented the mor- 
 tality of the middle passage as one in the hundred. But never did I 
 hear it put higher than this, of thirty or forty per cent. Only see once 
 more how the record of your own statute book rises up in judgment 
 against your own conduct! While you not merely allow, but encou- 
 rage and stimulate the carrying away of untutored Indians and savage 
 Africans from the desolate shores of Malabar and Ceylon and Mo- 
 sambique, giving free scope to all the practices of fraud and treachery, 
 which the arts of wicked ingenuity can devise to entrap them, and 
 bear them into bondage, that the sordid desires of a few grasping 
 planters may be gratified, read the wise and humane words on the 
 front of the British statute read them and blush for shame! " Where- 
 as in various parts" Of Hindostan! Of the Indian Archipelago! Of 
 the Mosambique and Sofala coasts? No but "of the United King- 
 dom of Great Britain and Ireland, persons have been seduced to leave 
 their native country under false representations, and have suffered 
 great hardships for want of provisions and proper accommodation, and 
 no security whatever being afforded that they shall be carried to (he 
 ports for which they have agreed be it therefore enacted.'' Has the 
 faintest attempt been made to afford such security to the Indian and 
 the African, as this statute anxiously provides for the free and en- 
 lightened native of our own island? any precaution against his being 
 trepanned, and seduced on board, under representations that he is 
 only going to another village of his own country, where he will enjoy 
 his own ease, work in his own way, and worship according to disown 
 religion? any precautions against being hurried away by force, while 
 others are decoyed by fraud? any precautions against being scantily
 
 496 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 provided and pestilentially lodged? any precaution against his being 
 carried to one destination, after bargaining for another? Nothing 
 whatever of the kind. But indeed such precautions, though practica- 
 ble where they are little wanted on the coasts of this country, studded 
 with custom-house establishments, and round which a cordon of re- 
 venue officers is drawn by day and by night, must prove wholly inef- 
 fectual where they are most wanted on the desert strands of the 
 Eastern Ocean. And you see the results in the documents I have 
 just read: where the frauds and the force of the embarkation, and 
 the dreadful mortality of the voyage, are recorded in imperishable 
 proofs of the crimes you have dared to encourage. 
 
 Therefore it is, my lords, that I have deemed it my indispensable 
 duty to drag before you this iniquitous measure; therefore it is that I 
 have yielded to the sacred obligation of going through a subject as 
 painful to handle as it was necessary to be examined; therefore it is 
 that I have waded, at extreme suffering to myself, through the agoniz- 
 ing detail of the slave traffic; and therefore it is that I have, with 
 unspeakable anxiety but an anxiety occasioned far more by the im- 
 portance of the question than by its difficulty or any disinclination to 
 grapple with it laid bare the enormities of this proceeding, and set 
 forth its glaring inconsistency with the great act of abolition, from the 
 principles of which, I had fondly hoped, no English statesman would 
 ever be found daring enough to swerve. My lords, I have for more 
 than a quarter of a century been the supporter in Parliament of that 
 great measure of justice. But at every period of my life since I 
 reached man's estate, I have been its active, zealous, eager, though, 
 God knows, feeble supporter, wherever I could hope to lend it assist- 
 ance. For this holy cause I have been a fellow-labourer with the 
 greatest men this country ever produced, whether in the Senate, in 
 the Courts, or at the Bar elevated to the ermine, or still practising in 
 the forum. With them I have humbly though fervently fought this 
 good fight, and worked at this pious work with them who are gone 
 from hence, as with those who yet remain. And we had indeed well 
 hoped they who are no more, and they who still survive to venerate 
 the names of the forerunners, and tread if it be possible in their foot- 
 steps that we had succeeded in putting down for ever the monstrous 
 traffic in human flesh. Could I then see this attempt to revive it, and 
 hold my peace? I could not have rested on my couch and suffered 
 this execrable work to be done uninterrupted to be done. I required 
 not to be visited by those surviving friends of whom I just now spake 
 required not to be roused by the agiiation of public meetings 
 required not the countless applications of those whose disinterested 
 patriotism, whose pure benevolence, whose pious philanthropy, en- 
 dearing them to my heart, have won for them the universal confidence 
 of mankind. No! my lords; I could not slumber without seeing before 
 me in visions of the night the great and good men who have passed 
 away, seeming as if they could not taste their own repose, while they 
 forbade me the aid of rest, until I should lend my feeble help, and 
 stretch forth this hand to chase away the monster Slave Trade from the
 
 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 497 
 
 light he once more outrages, back to the den where he had been chain- 
 ed up by their mightier arms. Justly famous of other times! If it 
 be not given us to emulate their genius, to tread the bright path of 
 their glory, to share in the transcendent virtue which formed their chief 
 renown let us at least taste that joy which they valued above all 
 others for that enjoyment we too can command to bask in the in- 
 ward sunshine of an approving conscience, athwart which no action 
 of their illustrious lives ever cast a shade! 
 
 I move you to resolve that the Order in Council of the 12th July 
 " 1. That the Order in Council of the 12th of July, 1837, was passed 
 for the purpose of enabling the proprietors of Guiana to import into 
 that colony, as apprenticed labourers, the natives of countries within 
 the limits of the East India Company's charter, before it was known 
 that any law had been enacted in India for their protection, and has 
 been suffered to remain in force after it was known that the law en- 
 acted in India on the 1st of May, 1837, and transmitted by a despatch 
 of the 7th of June, is wholly insufficient to afford them such protec- 
 tion as is required, and to prevent the evils to which such traffic is 
 exposed, while there are no means of preventing the greatest abuses 
 from being practised, both in Asia and in Africa, under colour of the 
 traffic, which it is the professed object of the Order in Council to facili- 
 tate and encourage: 
 
 "2. That the said Order in Council of the 12th of July, 1837, was 
 improperly issued and ought to be recalled." 
 
 THE REPLY. 
 
 The masterly speech which has just been delivered by my noble 
 friend,* while it calls for my cordial thanks, relieves your lordships 
 from hearing many points, which he has handled, discussed far less 
 effectively by me, in availing myself of the right of reply, which your 
 courtesy bestows, lint a few words of explanation are required by 
 one or two things which have fallen from the noble duke,t for whom 
 I entertain the most unqualified respect, and whose authority, as a 
 practical statesman, I place in the foremost rank. 
 
 First, however, I must express my unbounded astonishment at the 
 speech of my noble friend.:}: Not only has he left wholly unnoticed 
 my distinct and formal challenge, to show wherein this measure differs 
 from the scheme of Letord, which all the authorities, both in the 
 Mauritius and at home, stigmatized as a mere blind for a slave trading 
 adventure; but he has argued the whole question as if there were no 
 Madras on the map of Asia no Bombay no Ceylon, for which no 
 rules are made no Pondicherry belonging to France, for which we 
 cannot make any rule no Goa in the hands of slave trading Portugal 
 no African coast within the Company's limits and for which there 
 exists not an authority on earth that can make a single rule, or watch 
 a mile of the sea board. The whole reliance has been placed on tho 
 
 Lord Kllcnhorough. f The Duke of Wellington. 
 
 Lord Gleneljf. 
 
 42*
 
 498 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 law made at Calcutta by my noble kinsman, the Governor General in 
 Council* a law of no kind of value, had it comprehended all Asia 
 and Africa too a law in which my noble relation attempted little and 
 effected less pretending to prevent hardly anything, and really pre- 
 venting nothing at all feeble in its provisions impotent in its enact- 
 ments insignificant in its rubric a blank in its body when every 
 one knows, and I had expressly so argued it, that no law made by the 
 governor in council (if in council the potentate who made such a thing 
 can be said to sit) has any force or effect whatever, were it as omni- 
 potent as it is inefficient, beyond the presidency of Fort William, and 
 never could affect a single atom of the traffic which most of all this 
 measure is intended to encourage, and which most requires regulation 
 and control. But in overturning the whole speech of my noble friend, 
 I have also disposed of the noble duke's. For his only reason for 
 resisting the motion and offering the government an escape through 
 the previous question is their acceptance of his offer to pass certain 
 regulations. Suppose the noble duke's system were adopted to-mor- 
 row and I think I am using sufficiently complimentary language 
 when I call it a system, for assuredly I do not profess to admire it as 
 much as I have hitherto been won^ to admire all its author's produc- 
 tions, whether as a soldier or as a statesman suppose my noble kins- 
 mant had enacted every tittle of it in council, instead of his own 
 puny regulation of the first of July still it would have been confined 
 to Bengal. 
 
 THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. All are included. 
 
 LORD BROUGHAM. No not Pondicherry, for there you cannot 
 legislate notGoa, for that is Portuguese not any part of the African 
 coast, over the whole of which this measure of July sweeps, envelop- 
 ing all in the slave trade. That measure, our order in council, is now 
 given up it cannot for an instant stand for every argument urged 
 in its defence assumes that it must be accompanied or followed by 
 other regulations, some of which have not been, others of which never 
 can be made. The noble duke admits this as distinctly as my noble 
 friend. Then I show you places without number, where no regula- 
 tions whatever can be made by all the powers and authorities existing 
 in the empire, and that is decisive against the order in council. I have 
 waited, and in vain, for any answer to this main branch of the argu- 
 ment from the noble Secretary of State I put it to him in every form, 
 and he makes no sign. Therefore that order stands convicted namely, 
 by confession it stands convicted of leaving the door ajar to the 
 African slave trader, under the fairer name of encouraging the trade 
 in apprentices for I call it as bad as leaving the door ajar, to affect 
 shutting the main gate while you leave half a yard to the one side, a 
 door wide open, through which the whole body of it may enter, and 
 which there exists no power within your reach, nay, no power on this 
 earth, that can shut it. 
 
 Much was said by the noble jduke of the value of colonial posses- 
 
 * Lord Auckland. f Lord Auckland.
 
 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 499 
 
 sions, the necessity of more hands to cultivate onr plantations, and the 
 tendency of these resolutions to prevent their importation. But here 
 it is that the noble duke has entirely mistaken both the tenor of my 
 opinions, and the scope of the resolutions. I am not one of those who 
 object to colonial establishments. Many men for whom I have a great 
 and just respect do go this length. My opinion differs from theirs. 
 I lately stated how I draw the line. I make a great distinction between 
 such colonies as those on the main land of North America, where men 
 settle without the plan of returning home, where the property is in 
 the hands of personal residents, and which are extensive enough to 
 defend themselves. When these are able to stand alone, when it is 
 no longer of mutual benefit that the colonial relation should continue, 
 the separation is advantageous to both parent state and settlement. 
 But as I lately stated in the argument I held with my noble friend,* 
 now absent, unfortunately, from a domestic affliction, the slave colonies 
 are differently circumstanced; and no one can doubt the mutual bene- 
 fits of their continued dependence upon the mother country. They 
 are important to our commerce, and still more to our income and 
 wealth we are of use towards their defence and in a military point 
 of view the connection may be exceedingly material. I have not 
 therefore a word to'say against the noble duke's high value which he 
 sets upon such possessions. How far their cultivation, after the eman- 
 cipation act comes into full play, will require an importation of la- 
 bourers from the East, is quite another question. But then it is one 
 on which these resolutions pronounce no opinion whatever. I defy 
 any man to point out one line of either resolution which even looks 
 in that direction. Why do I thus confidently say so? Because I pur- 
 posely framed them so as to keep quite clear of a subject on which I 
 knew men might differ widely, while they all agreed in the main ob- 
 ject of censuring the order in council. But says the noble viscount,t 
 following the noble duke, whose unwillingness to remove him from 
 the office holden at his grace's pleasure seems to have excited a just 
 feeling of thankfulness, a great experiment is about to be made. We 
 cannot tell, he says, what may happen in 1S40 I hope and trust that 
 will be all known two years earlier therefore, he adds, let us be on 
 our guard. Why not? Certainly let us be on our guard but do you 
 say a single word to show that this order in council for importing more 
 apprentices puts us more on onr guard? What will betide us, says the 
 noble duke, should the emancipated Negroes refuse to work for hire? 
 How will your estates then be cultivated? and how can you tell that 
 they will pass from the state of slavery to that of industrious work- 
 men? How can I tell? Why, by looking at what they are already 
 doing in Jamaica and Barbadocs, whore they work every spare hour 
 voluntarily for wages in Antigua and Bermuda, where they have 
 boon as free as the peasantry of Hampshire for near three years, and 
 have worked as hard and behaved themselves as well. On this head, 
 then, I have not the shadow of a doubt, nor am I entitled to have 
 
 Lord Asliburton. f Lord Melbourne.
 
 500 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 if experience can be trusted as a safe guide. But furthermore sup- 
 pose me quite wrong suppose the whole experience of the past belied 
 by the future, and that all the Negroes refuse to work the moment the 
 hour of their liberation strikes here are eight hundred thousand idle 
 and dissolute, and restless and rebellious Negroes (for there can be no 
 middle state between peace with industry, and idleness with revolt) 
 and the noble duke would keep all quiet, and reclaim all from idleness, 
 by sprinkling over this vast mass three or four thousand Coolies from 
 Asia. The supposition is that all the West Indies are in a state of 
 inaction first presently after of insurrection and confusion no work 
 done but that of mischief no labour, no quiet, no subordination 
 all is a mass of confusion, and every portion of the vast population is 
 in a ferment when sprikling over the boiling mass a few peaceful 
 and indolent natives of Hindostan will at once restore universal quiet, 
 and all will suddenly sink down to rest! 
 
 Hi raotus animorum, atque hsec certamina tanta 
 Pulveris exigui jactu compressa quiescent! 
 
 But I have said, my lords, that these resolutions pronounce no 
 judgment whatever upon the policy of importing new hands. All my 
 opinions on this subject may be as erroneous as you please the noble 
 duke's and the government's under his protection, as well grounded 
 as possible whatever may be my private opinion, you are to vote 
 on the resolutions, and not on the speech that introduces and defends 
 them; and he who holds as high, as the noble duke, the necessity of 
 introducing new labourers, may most correctly and earnestly join with 
 him who has no opinion of the kind, in supporting resolutions which 
 leave the question wholly untouched. Nay, the more I was of the 
 noble duke's opinion the higher I valued the importation as a re- 
 source the more should I vote for these resolutions because they 
 go only to condemn a most erroneous mode of trying this experiment 
 a mode which its authors shrink from defending, and which the 
 noble duke and every one else join in condemning, as not giving the 
 experiment fair play. Can anything indeed be more unfair towards 
 that experiment than trying it in such a clumsy, bungling manner, as 
 to bring upon it the odium of being a new slave trade? 
 
 While, however, this is the clear and undeniable posture of the 
 question in debate, I cannot at all abandon the jealousy and indeed 
 the aversion with which I regard all plans whatever of wholesale 
 shifting of populaton. Nor am 1 in the least degree won over to such 
 plans by hearing their defence clothed in language drawn from the 
 science of political economy. My noble friend calls it "a free circu- 
 lation of labour," and professes his reluctance to abandon on this sub- 
 ject his tenets as an economist. I have heard the terms and the doc- 
 trines of political economy turned to many uses in my time. They 
 have been used to defend state lotteries insurances in the lottery 
 stock-jobbing time-bargains in the funds. Why, it is said, should 
 there be any interference with the free use of capital, or of skill and of
 
 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 501 
 
 labour in these departments of industry? On the Continent it has been 
 applied to even baser uses and made to defend the establishment of 
 public stews, under due regulations for the benefit of the subject. But 
 I own I have never yet heard those principles applied where they 
 were more out of place and season than to the subject of the slave 
 trade. Can any man in his sober senses think of calling the whole- 
 sale embarking of Hindoos, and then transporting them to the anti- 
 podes, to work in ways wholly unknown to them and foreign to their 
 nature and habits, and pretend that giving it facilities encouragement 
 stimulants is furthering the free circulation of labour? The argu- 
 ment against all this plan is, that there is mere slave trading in every 
 part of it that a felony lurks under each of its arrangements. Then 
 do the political economists and my noble friend, who is so vigorous a 
 stickler for their doctrines, hold that the circulation of labour is inter- 
 rupted by preventing the slave trade? If they do nor can they stop 
 a hair's-breadth short of this then I am for abiding by the law of 
 God and the law of the land, let their laws of political economy fare 
 how they may. 
 
 The noble duke has proposed certain terms to the government, as 
 the price df his support "Promise me you will adopt my code of 
 regulations," says he, " and you shall not be condemned by a vote of 
 censure this time." The hook so baited was sure to take the minis- 
 ters bit immediately but they were not caught. "Oh yes by all 
 means" "Anything you please," says the noble viscount " we agree 
 at once" to what? Not to the proposal made; but only to consider 
 of.it " We will take it into our best consideration." I don't much 
 think this kind of acceptance will catch the noble duke. He saw the 
 noble viscount swallow the bait but he had not caught his fish 
 away it ran with the line in its mouth, down the stream, and buried 
 itself in " serious consideration." Why, I defy the noble duke to pro- 
 pose any one thing on any one subject, which the government, and all 
 the House, and the country too, will not, as a matter of course, take 
 into serious and respectful consideration. The noble viscount will 
 consider of it; so shall I; but very possibly he may end by thinking 
 as little of it as I do. Considering of it proves no assent Le Rui 
 s'avisera, is the form of rejecting bills the sovereign has only once 
 or twice taken any measure into consideration since the revolution, 
 though he has assented to some thousands; and the minister, too, may 
 consider and reject. The nature of the noble viscount's answer, then, 
 was, to use the phraseology of a witness on a memorable occasion, at 
 that bar, More no than yes. So, as the noble duke failed to catch the 
 noble viscount, the noble viscount must not expect to catch the noble 
 duke anxious as he is to be taken upon the present occasion. 
 
 I hear it said by my noble friend,* that there is a wide difference 
 between his plan and Mr. Harham's in 1811, inasmuch as slavery 
 then existed, and the Chinese were to be brought over as free labourers 
 whereas, apprenticeship is now the law, und the Hindoos are lo 
 
 Lord Glenelg.
 
 502 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 come into a colony of apprenticed labourers. That is precisely my 
 argument to show how much worse this plan is than that; and yet 
 that was not endured by any one who knew the subject ever so im- 
 perfectly. No one would have listened to Mr. Barham's proposition, 
 but that he was to make all the labourers he brought over free at 
 once; they were to be free from every shackle imposed upon the 
 Negroes. Here the Hindoos are to be subject to every restraint which 
 the Negroes endure nay, this plan is to continue for years after the 
 Negroes are set free. 
 
 But a new argument is raised by the noble viscount.* " Take care," 
 says he, " how you set men's interests against their duty, and raise 
 their strongest prejudices against Negro freedom. The slavery of the 
 ancient world was only extinguished by it becoming men's interest to 
 prefer free labour to slave labour; therefore, if you make free labour 
 so scarce in the West Indies as to make it dear, slavery never can 
 cease." I am not sensible of ever in my life having heard a piece of 
 reasoning more absurd in all its parts one in which the incorrectness 
 of the facts assumed, more strove for the mastery with the thoughtless- 
 ness of the inferences drawn from them. What ! slavery in Europe 
 extinguished by the high price of slave labour, or any other calculation 
 of profit and loss ! Why, I had always believed that it was the mild 
 spirit of the Gospel of Christ which worked by slow degrees this happy 
 change. I state the sentiments I have always heard accounted just, 
 and not out of deference to the Right Reverend Prelates in whose 
 presence I speak, and who, to their immortal honour, have never once 
 refused the+r support to any one proposition adverse to the slave trade. 
 But never before did I hear it doubted that first the spirit of Christianity, 
 hostile to all cruelty and oppression; and afterwards the efforts of 
 zealous priests, even refusing the rites of the church to men unless 
 they would free their bondsmen, gradually wrought the happy change 
 which the noble lord ascribes to a calculation of interest. But grant 
 him his facts; how do they prove the emancipation to be in any danger 
 from a rise in the wages of labour? He talks as if the act had never 
 passed, and we were trusting to men's interests for setting their slaves 
 free. Happily, longer than August 1840 they cannot be retained in 
 any form of servitude. Does he dread that high wages will bring back 
 the chain and the cartwhip? I have no share in his chimerical appre- 
 hensions. I defy all the combinations which cruelty can effect with 
 avarice to restore that hideous state of society of which the knell 
 sounded over the Atlantic in 1S33. No, no ! I will trust the Negro 
 people for that. They will keep what they have got. Trust me they 
 will set at defiance all the noble lord's calculations, and all the wishes 
 of their former masters, and never more consent to work one spell of 
 work, but for their own behoof be the terms of their employment 
 ever so distasteful to their white neighbours be their desire for. a 
 restoration of the yoke, and the chain, and the cartwhip ever so in- 
 tense. The renewal of the slave trade is a very different thing. On 
 
 * Lord Melbourne.
 
 EASTERN SLAVE TRADE. 503 
 
 that rny fears arc indeed grave and perplexing for I know the Indian 
 crimp and the African trader the inexhaustible perfidies of the dealers 
 in men, and the scope which those frauds have among hordes of un- 
 civilized men, many of them in their own country slaves the comfort 
 and aid which those wretches may reckon upon receiving from accom- 
 plices ready made, such as the bribed governor on the Spanish Main, 
 and the friendly authorities of Cuba. 
 
 But I am told to be of good courage, and not to despond there is 
 no fear of abuse no prospect of the horrible traffic so much condemned 
 ever taking root in our islands. I am bid to look at the influence of 
 public opinion the watchfulness of the Press the unceasing efforts 
 of all the societies the jealous vigilance of Parliament. Am I then to 
 stand by and suffer the traffic to be revived, in the hope that we shall 
 again be able to work its extirpation? Trust, say the friends of this 
 abominable measure, trust to the force which gained the former triumph. 
 Expect some Clarkson to arise, mighty in the powers of persevering 
 philanthopy, with the piety of a saint and the courage of a martyr 
 hope for some second Wilberforce, who shall cast away all ambition 
 but that of doing good, scorn all power but that of relieving his fellow- 
 creatures, and reserving for mankind what others give up to party, 
 know no vocation but that blessed work of furthering justice and free- 
 ing the slave reckon upon once more seeing a government like that 
 of 1806 alas, how different from any we now witness ! formed of 
 men who deemed no work of humanity below their care or alien to 
 their nature, and resolved to fulfil their high destiny, beard the court, 
 confront the peers, contemn the planters and in despite of planter, 
 and peer, and prince, crush the foreign traffic with one hand, while 
 they gave up the staff of power with the other, rather than be patrons 
 of intolerance at home ! These are the views with which it is sought 
 to console us and gain us over to the ill-starred measure before you. 
 
 I make for answer if it please you No by no means nothing 
 of all this. The monster is down, and I prefer keeping him down to 
 relying upon all our resources for gaining a second triumph. I will 
 not suffer the Upas tree to be transplanted, on the chance; of its not 
 thriving in an ungenial soil, and in the hope that, after it shall be found 
 to blight with death all beneath its shade, my arm may be found strong 
 enough to wield the axe which shall lay it low. I thank you for the 
 patience with which you have listened to me, and on which I have 
 unwillingly trespassed so long. My bounden duty could not otherwise 
 have been performed; and I had no choice but to act now as I have 
 acted ever through the whole of my life maintaining to the end the 
 implacable enmity with which I have at all times pursued this infernal 
 trade.
 
 LAW REFORM. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 LAW REFORM MR. BENTHAM MR. DUMONT MR. MILL SIR JAMES 
 
 MACKINTOSH. 
 
 THE age of Law Reform and the age of Jeremy Bentham are one and the same. 
 He is the father of the most important of all the branches of Reform, the leading 
 and ruling department of human improvement. No one before him had ever seri- 
 ously thought of exposing the defects in our English system of Jurisprudence. All 
 former students had confined themselves to learn its principles, to make them- 
 selves masters of its eminently technical and artificial rules; and all former writers 
 had but expounded the doctrines handed down from age to age. Men, by common 
 consent, had agreed in bending before the authority of former times as decisive upon 
 every point; and confounding the question of, what is the law, which that authority 
 alone could determine, with the question, what ought to be the law, which the wis- 
 dom of an early and an unenlightened age was manifestly unfit to solve; they had 
 taken it for granted that the system was perfect, because it was established, and 
 had bestowed upon the produce of ignorance and inexperience their admiration in 
 proportion as it was defective. He it was who first made the mighty step of trying 
 the whole provisions of our jurisprudence by the test of expediency, fearlessly ex- 
 amining how far each part was connected with the rest; and with yet more undaunted 
 courage, inquiring how far even its most consistent and symmetrical arrangements 
 were framed according to the principle which should pervade a Code of Laws 
 their adaptation to the circumstances of society, to the wants of men, and to the 
 promotion of human happiness. 
 
 Not only was he thus eminently original among the lawyers and the legal philoso- 
 phers of his own country; he might he said to be the first legal philosopher that had 
 appeared in the world. For Justinian, when he undertook his great work of abridg- 
 ing and digesting the Roman law, in truth only methodized existing laws, and 
 brought into a compendious and manageable form those rules which lay scattered 
 over so many volumes, that they were said to be " the load of many camels" What- 
 ever he found, or rather whatever Tribonian and his coadjutors employed by the 
 Kinperor found, in the edicts of Praetors,* the laws of the popular assemblies, f the 
 rescripts of former Kmperors, or the opinions and other writings of lawyers, was 
 deemed to be fixed law; and accordingly the Pandects, (or Digest,) any more than 
 the Code and the Novels, contain nothing which is not specially avouched by tho 
 authority upon which it is given as law, and the Institutes, a work of matchless 
 beauty as an abstract or summary of principles, is wholly drawn from the same 
 sources. The like may be said of the modern Codes, of which the Frederician or 
 Prussian is the most important that had been compiled before Mr. Bentham's time; 
 and although that of Napoleon, the most perfect of them all, from being the growth 
 of an age that had already profited largely by Mr. Uentham's labours, contains very 
 considerable changes and improvements upon the former laws; yet these bear but 
 a very insignificant proportion to tho whole mass, which is in the main a digest of 
 existing jurisprudence, ami derives its principal claim to tho public gratitude from 
 
 F.dicta Pnutomm. t Lcgcg ct Plchiscitn. 
 
 t Rcscri|>la I'riiicipuin. Kcspoiisa I'rudfiitiiin. 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 506 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 its abolishing the local differences of the provincial systems, and giving one law to 
 the whole empire. Mr. Bentham, professing to regard no existinor law as of any 
 value unless it was one which ought to have been made, wholly unfetters himself 
 from any deference to authority bringing the fundamental principles, as well as 
 the details of each legislative rule, to the test of reason alone trying all by the crite- 
 rion of their tendency to promote the happiness and improve the condition of man- 
 kind not only showed in detail the glaring inconsistencies and the radical imper- 
 fections of the English system, but carrying his bold and sagacious views to their 
 amplest extent, investigated the principles upon which all human laws should be 
 constructed, and showed how their provisions should be framed for the better 
 accomplishment of their great purpose the well-being of civil society, both as 
 regards the enjoyment of civil rights, the prevention of crimes, and the encourage- 
 ment of virtue. The adaptation of these principles to the particular circumstances 
 of any given state, can only be ascertained by a careful examination of those cir- 
 cumstances, and, above all, by an accurate attention to the laws already existing in 
 the country, and which, how ill soever contrived in many respects, have always, 
 more or less, arisen out of those very circumstances. This is the business of Codi- 
 fication, which consists in not only reducing to a system and method the existing 
 laws, but in so amending them as to make them capable of accomplishing their car- 
 dinal object the happiness of the community. 
 
 In thus assigning to Mr. Bentham, not merely the first place among legal phi- 
 losophers, but the glory of having founded tbe sect, and been the first who deserved 
 the name, it cannot be intended to deny that other writers preceded him, who wisely 
 and fearlessly exposed the defects of existing systems. Voltaire, for example, 
 great and original in whatever pursuit, whether of letters or of science, whether of 
 gay or of grave composition, was enlightened by his extraordinary genius, had, 
 with his characteristic vigour and sagacity, attacked many false principles that pre- 
 vailed in the judicial systems of all nations. Filangieri, who of all writers before 
 Bentham comes nearest to the character of a legal philosopher, had exposed, with 
 the happiest effect, the folly as well as cruelty of severe penal inflictions; Mon- 
 tesquieu, whose capacity as well as his learning, is unquestionable, notwithstanding 
 his puerile love of epigram, and his determination to strain and force all facts within 
 the scope of a fantastical theory, had discussed with success many important prin- 
 ciples of general jurisprudence; and Mr. Locke, a far more illustrious name, had 
 treated with his wonted profoundness and accurate reflection, many of the principles 
 which bear upon the political branches of legislation. But none of those great men, 
 nor any of the others through whose writings important and useful discussions of 
 legislative principles are scattered, ever embraced the subject in its wider range, nor 
 attempted to reduce the whole jurisprudence under the dominion of fixed and general 
 rules. None ever before Mr. Bentham took in the whole departments of legisla- 
 tion. None before him can be said to have treated it as a science, and by so treating, 
 made it one. This is his pre-eminent distinction; to this praise he is most justly 
 entitled; and it is as proud a title to fame as any philosopher ever possessed. 
 
 To the performance of the magnificent task which he had set before him, this great 
 man brought a capacity, of which it is saying everything to affirm, that it was not 
 inadequate to so mighty a labour. Acute, sagacious, reflecting, suspicious to a fault 
 of all outward appearances, nor ever to be satisfied without the most close, sifting, 
 unsparing scrutiny, he had an industry which no excess of toil could weary, and 
 applied himself with as unremitting perseverance to master every minute portion 
 of each subject, as if he had not possessed a quickness of apprehension which could 
 at a glance become acquainted with all its general features. In him were blended, 
 to a degree perhaps unequalled in any other philosopher, the love and appreciation 
 of general principles, with the avidity for minute details; the power of embracing 
 and following out general views, with the capacity for pursuing each one of num- 
 berless particular facts. His learning was various, extensive, and accurate. His- 
 tory, and of all nations and all ages, was familiar to him, generally in the languages 
 in which it was recorded. With the poets and the orators of all times he was 
 equally well acquainted, though he undervalued the productions of both. The 
 writings of the philosophers of every country, and of every age, were thoroughly 
 known to him, and had deeply occupied his attention. It was only the walks of
 
 LAW REFORM. 507 
 
 the exacter sciences that he had not frequented; and he regarded them, very erro- 
 neously, as unworthy of being explored, or valued them only for the inventions 
 useful to common life which flowed from them, altogether neglecting the pleasures 
 of scientific contemplation which form their main object and chief attraction. In 
 the laws of his own country he was perfectly well versed, having been educated as 
 a lawyer, and called to the English bar, at which his success would have been cer- 
 tain, had he not preferred the life of a sage. Nor did he rest satisfied with the ori- 
 ginal foundations of legal knowledge which he had laid while studying the system; 
 he continually read whatever appeared on the subject, whether the decisions of our 
 courts or the speculations of juridical writers; so as to continue conversant with the 
 latest state of the law in its actual and practical administration. Though living 
 retired from society, tie was a watchful and accurate observer of every occurrence, 
 whether political, or forensic, or social, of the day; and no man who lived so much 
 to himself, and devoted so large a portion of his time to solitary study, could have 
 been supposed to know so perfectly, even in its more minute details, the state of 
 the world around him, in which he hardly seemed to live, and did not at all move. 
 
 But of all his qualities, the one that chiefly distinguished Mr. Bentham, and was 
 the most fruitful in its results, was the boldness with which he pursued his inquiries. 
 Whatever obstacle opposed his course, be it little or be it mighty from what quar- 
 ter soever the resistance proceeded with what feelings soever it was allied, be 
 they of a kind that leave men's judgment calm and undisturbed, or of a nature to 
 suspend the reasoning faculty altogether, and overwhelm opposition with a storm 
 of unthinking passion all signified nothing to one who, weighing principles and 
 arguments in golden scales, held the utmost weight of prejudice, the whole influence 
 of a host of popular feelings, as mere dust in the balance, when any the least reason 
 loaded the other end of the beam. And if this was at once the distinguishing 
 quality of his mind, and the great cause of his success, so was it also the source of 
 nearly all his errors, and the principal obstacle to the progress of his philosophy. 
 For it often, especially in the latter part of his life, prevented him from seeing real 
 difficulties and solid objections to his proposals; it made him too regardless of the 
 quarter from which opposition might proceed; it gave an appearance of impracti- 
 cability to many of his plans; and, what was far more fatal, it rendered many of his 
 theories wholly inapplicable to any existing, and almost to any possible state of 
 human affairs, by making him too generally forget that all laws must both be exe- 
 cuted by, and operate upon, rnen men whose passions and feelings are made to the 
 lawgiver's hand, and cannot all at once be moulded to his will. The same un- 
 daunted boldness of speculation led to another and a kindred error. He pushed 
 every argument to the uttermost; he strained each principle till it cracked; he loaded 
 all the foundations on which his system was built, as if, like arches, they wero 
 strengthened by the pressure, until he made them bend and give way beneath the 
 superincumbent weight. A provision, whether of political or of ordinary law, had 
 no merit in his eyes, if it admitted of any exception, or betokened any bending of 
 principles to practical facilities. He seemed oftentimes to resemble the mechani- 
 cian who should form his calculations and fashion his machinery upon the abstract 
 consideration of the mechanical powers, and make no allowance for friction, or tho 
 resistance of the air, or the strength of the materials. Among the many instances 
 that might be given of this defect, it may be sufficient to single out one from his 
 juridical, and one from his political speculations. Perceiving the great benefits of 
 individual responsibility in a judge, he peremptorily rejected all but what he termed 
 single-seated justice, and would allow no merit whatever to any tribunal composed 
 of more, either for weighing conflicting evidence, assessing the amount of compen- 
 sation, or reversing the judgments of a single inferior judge. Holding also the 
 doctrine of universal suffrage, he would have no (exception whatever, and argued not 
 only that women, but that persons of unsound mind, should be admitted to vote in 
 the choice of representatives. 
 
 The greater qualities of Mr. Bentham's understanding hare been described; but ho 
 also excelled in the light works of fancy. An habitual despiser of eloquence, ho 
 wan one of the most eloquent of men when it pleased him to write naturally, and 
 before he had adopted that harsh style, full of involved periods and new made words, 
 which, how accurately soever it conveyed Ins ideas, was almost as hard to learn as
 
 508 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 a foreign language. Thus his earlier writings are models of force as well as of 
 precision; but some of them are also highly rhetorical; nor are the justly celebrated 
 u Defence of Usury," and "Protest against Law Taxes" more finished models of 
 moral demonstration, than the Address to the French National Assembly on Colonial 
 Emancipation is of an eloquence at once declamatory and argumentative. The pecu- 
 liar manner of scrutinizing every subject, into which he latterly fell, which, indeed, 
 he adopted during the greater portion of his life, and which has been happily enough 
 termed the " exhaustive mode" was little adapted to combine with eloquence, or with 
 any kind of discussion calculated to produce a great popular effect; for it consisted 
 in a careful examination of every circumstance which could by any possibility affect 
 either side of a given question, and it gave the same expansion to all considerations, 
 however varying in point of importance; whereas, to convince or to strike an audi- 
 ence, or a cursory reader, nothing can be more essentially necessary than the selec- 
 tion of the more important objects, and making them stand boldly out in relief above 
 the rest. Another consequence of his addiction to this method was, that it impaired 
 his strength both of memory and of reasoning. He investigated with a pen in his 
 hand, trusted to his eye as much as to his recollection, and enfeebled his powers of 
 abstract attention pretty much as analysts are apt to become less powerful reasoners 
 and investigators than geometricians. It thus happened that although he disliked 
 conversation in which more than one joined, confining himself to a teta-a-tdte, or what 
 he termed " single-handed conversation," he exceedingly disrelished, at least for the 
 last thirty years of his life, anything like argument, preferring anecdote, or remark, 
 or pleasantry, in which last he was, though sometimes happy, yet often unsuccess- 
 ful. But, as not unfrequently happens, he felt far more jealous of any disrespect 
 shown to the jokes with which his later writings were filled, than of any dissent 
 from his reasonings, although the former were for the most part overlaboured, far- 
 fetched, and lumbering. 
 
 It was a result of similar prejudices that made him undervalue not only eloquence, 
 but poetry; and he was wont to express his thankfulness that we should never see 
 any more Epic poems. That he might greatly prefer other exertions of original 
 genius to those which have produced the wonders of song, is easily understood. 
 But that he should deny the existence of the pleasure derived from works of ima- 
 gination, or question the reality of the desire, or refuse it gratification, seems wholly 
 incomprehensible, and only the more so, because his whole theory of motives pro- 
 ceeds upon the assumption, that man's constitution leads him to take delight in 
 certain enjoyments; and no one surely can doubt the fact of the fine arts giving 
 pleasure pleasure, too, of a refined, not of a gross description. Nor could the 
 devotion of some men's talents to poetry be rationally grudged, when it was con- 
 sidered how few those are whom such pursuits can ever withdraw from severer 
 studies, and how often they are persons in whom such studies would find ungenial 
 dispositions. 
 
 The moral character of this eminent person was, in the most important particulars, 
 perfect and unblemished. His honesty was unimpeachable, and his word might, 
 upon any subject, be taken as absolutely conclusive, whatever motives he might 
 have for distorting or exaggerating the truth. But he was, especially of late years, 
 of a somewhat jealous disposition betrayed impatience if to another was ascribed 
 any part whatever of the improvements in jurisprudence, which all originated in 
 his own labours, but to effect which different kinds of men were required and 
 even showed some disinclination to see any one interfere, although as a coadjutor, 
 and for the furtherance of his own designs. It is said that he suffered a severe 
 mortification in not being brought early in life into Parliament; although he must 
 have felt that a worse service never could have been rendered to the cause he had 
 most at heart, than to remove him from his own peculiar sphere to one in which, 
 even if he had excelled, he yet never could have been nearly so useful to mankind. 
 It is certain that lie showed, upon many occasions, a harshness as well as coldness 
 of disposition towards individuals to whose unremitting friendship he owed great 
 obligations; and his impatience to see the splendid reforms which his genius had 
 projected, accomplished before his death, increasing as the time of his departure 
 drew nigh, made him latterly regard even his most familiar friends only as instru- 
 ments of reformation, and gave a very unamiable and indeed a revolting aspect of
 
 LAW REFORM. 509 
 
 callousness to his feelings towards them. For the sudden and mournful death of 
 one old and truly illustrious friend, he felt, as he expressed, no pain at all; towards 
 the person of a more recent friend he never concealed his disrespect, because lie 
 disappointed some extravagant hopes which he had formed that the bulk of a largo 
 fortune, acquired by honest industry, would be expended in promoting Parliament- 
 ary influence to be used in furthering great political changes. Into all these unami- 
 able features of his character, every furrow of which was deepened, and every shade 
 darkened by increasing years, there entered nothing base or hypocritical. If lie felt 
 little for a friend, he pretended to no more than he felt. If his sentiments were 
 tinged with asperity and edged with spite, he was the first himself to declare it; 
 and no one formed a less favourable or a more just judgment of his weaknesses 
 than he himself did, nor did any one pronounce such judgments with a severity that 
 exceeded the confessions of his own candour. Upon the whole then, while, in his 
 public, capacity, he presented an object of admiration and of gratitude, in his private 
 character he was formed rather to bo respected and studied, than beloved. 
 
 Among those who have been described as coadjutors to whom he and his system 
 owed much, and who were not requited by him according to their deserts, M. Du- 
 mont clearly occupied the foremost place. He was one of those active-minded, 
 acute, and amiable men, so well calculated to serve the cause of science, and whom 
 Geneva not unfrequently produces to her great illustration men, who, endowed 
 with faculties that fit them for original speculation, yet devote themselves, from 
 sincere love of some important subject, to act as disseminators of the truths dis- 
 covered by others aiding them in their researches diffusing knowledge which 
 would otherwise lie hid, even after it was once brought to light making it bear 
 new and often unexpected fruit, by their own culture and thus acting rather the 
 part of coadjutors and allies, than of mere pioneers to the march of discovery. 
 Among this class, M. Dumont may well be reckoned the first; and he possessed all 
 that didactic power by which it is so eminently distinguished. Of extraordinary 
 industry, of great acuteness, enthusiastically devoted to the object of his elucida- 
 tions, gifted with a rare power of illustration, no less able to methodize than to 
 abridge he not only thoroughly mastered all the views and all the details connect- 
 ed with his subject, but could at once perceive all its more remote connections, and 
 all the capabilities which it possessed of leading to results often new to the original 
 investigator. Whoever should suppose that the process by which Mr. Bentham's 
 greatest works were given to the world in their present state, consisted merely in 
 his manuscripts being entrusted to M. Dumont, and their contents by him abstracted 
 or drawn out into the form of printed treatises, would commit a very great mistake. 
 It was much more that the latter learnt the subject from the notes of the former, 
 and composed the treatises as he would have done had he been the discoverer of tho 
 matter, or as Mr. Hcntham would have done had he possessed the same talent for 
 explaining the results of his inquiries as for pursuing those investigations. It is 
 perhaps more accurate to say that Mr. 1'enthatn had abandoned, than that he never, 
 possessed this power of explaining; for his earliest works plainly show that he had 
 the gift when he thought fit to cultivate it. Of late years, however, he never could 
 stoop to make his speculations level to the capacity of ordinary readers, independ- 
 ently of the repulsive stylo which he had acquired, which must have been even of 
 laborious acqui-ition, and which grew into an inveterate habit of writing. It may, 
 however, well be doubted, if, at any time of his life, he could have produced 80 
 finished a specimen of the didactic art as M. Dumont gave in his principal work, 
 the " Trait r tie Legitlalion." Tho most celebrated of his other writings are tho 
 " Tltniriede Peinetcldt Recompenses," and the " Tactiqucdes -Isscinbltcs J'tihlitiiics,'' 
 
 M. Dumont's eloquence as an author, the singular clearness of his statements, 
 and the felicity of his illustrations, at once carried the system of Mr. Hentham into 
 nil the, literary, and, after a short interval, into all the political circles also, of 
 tho Continent. The accidental circumstance of the language in which ho wroto 
 being that of France, served to render tho subject more familiar abroad, than it was, 
 for many years in tho country adorned by tint illustrious philosopher's nativity and 
 residence. Hut for the la*t thirty years of bin life, his speculations bad become 
 quite, familiar to his own fellow-ciliuna; his doctrines found numerous followers; 
 his general system was adopted by political as well as legal reformers, who received 
 
 13*
 
 510 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the fundamental principles, while they often refused to admit the practical conse- 
 quences, or to adopt some of the details; and, long before his death, Mr. Bentham 
 was the acknowledged head of a large and powerful sect. The light which its 
 labours have thrown upon all subjects of jurisprudence, practical as well as specu- 
 lative, is of incalculable value. The tone which has been given to the public mind 
 has been sound and wholesome. The influence exerted upon the minds of states- 
 men has been most perceptible. The prejudice against all departure from established 
 arrangements, which the optimism of even the most liberal of former inquirers had 
 rooted in men's habits of thinking, has been destroyed. The reign of reason has 
 dethroned the usurped power of mere authority; and the advocate of an existing law, 
 found inconvenient or detrimental, has cast upon him the task of defending it by 
 argument, as much as he who wouW propound a new one. All the great improve- 
 ments in our system of jurisprudence which have been made during the last twenty 
 years (for it is within this period that even the Taxes on Law Proceedings have 
 been established,) may easily be traced to the long, and unwearied, and enlightened 
 labours of Mr. Bentham and his school. 
 
 It has been already remarked that this great Reformer by no means confined his 
 attention to those subjects, paramount as their importance is. He was a strenuous 
 advocate of all political reform, and devoted much of his time to the discussion of it. 
 But, though whatever he did was sure to be marked by his characteristic boldness 
 and sagacity, it must be allowed that his purely political speculations are of a very 
 inferior kind, when compared with those which formed the principal subjects of his 
 labours; and those whicli among his political speculations gave the least satisfaction, 
 were his inquiries concerning ecclesiastical polity. They displayed his wonted 
 acuteness, extraordinary ingenuity, great fertility of illustration; but they were not 
 marked by the same depth of reflection which distinguished his other writings. 
 Their prolixity was also matter of just complaint; and yet such is the power of 
 genius, even when most misapplied, that his huge volume upon the Liturgy and 
 Catechism of the Church of England, though abounding in bitterness unsuited to 
 the subject, and deformed by such absurdities as could scarcely be believed, is, 
 nevertheless, found by all who have had the courage to undertake the perusal of it, 
 one of the most entertaining works in the world.* These, and other writings upon 
 subjects still less connected with the ordinary course of his studies, were the fruits 
 of a weakness into which he was apt to fall during the latter period of his life. 
 After labouring at a subject for a length of time, he became tired of it, and to this 
 lassitude succeeded a disgust which made it hardly possible for him to resume it. 
 He then sought relief and relaxation in the variety of some very different inquiry, 
 and would often be led away to pursue it beyond all reasonable bounds. Thus his 
 friends were at one time apprehensive that the Law of Evidence (his most impor- 
 tant work next to the General Treatise) would have been wholly abandoned when 
 half finished, and the rest of his life given up to Parliamentary and Church Reform. 
 Nay, a trifling incident, as the publication in 1813 of the questions put to the wit- 
 nesses on the secret inquiry respecting the Princess of Wales in 1806, so engrossed 
 the attention of one who never could do things by halves, that for a considerable 
 time he was absorbed in, the discussion of that examination, and the principles that 
 should have governed it. The refusal of the House of Commons to receive printed 
 petitions, some years afterwards, turned him aside from all other pursuits, and pro- 
 duced a copious treatise -upon a very trivial subject, in which, too, it may be observed, 
 that he entirely misconceived the real gist of the question. It was when he had 
 become weary, and, as it were, sick of some truly important inquiry, and could not 
 he got to resume it, that the kindly influence of such firm and attached friends as 
 Rornilly and Dumont was most wanted and most beneficially exerted; and the latter 
 being always ready to lend his useful assistance, as well as to apply the stimulus of 
 his entreaties and councils, was probably the means of preventing many an impor- 
 tant inquiry from coming to an untimely end. 
 
 * As a specimen of the absurdities nlluded to above, may be given the proposal to substi- 
 tute feet-washing for the Sacrament of the Supper, from one of the charities in our Saviour's 
 history, and to have divine service read by charity school boys as being cheaper than min- 
 isters.
 
 LAW REFORM. 511 
 
 M. Dumont was as amiable in private life as he was ever justly admired in his 
 writings, and had originally been for his singular eloquence as a preacher. His 
 manners were as gentle as they were polished and refined. His conversation was 
 a model of excellence; it was truly delightful. Abounding in the most agreeable 
 and harmless wit fully instinct with various knowledge diversified with anec- 
 dotes of rare interest enriched with all the stores of modern literature seasoned 
 with an arch and racy humour, and occasionally a spice of mimicry, or rather of 
 acting, but subdued, as to be palatable it must always be, and giving rather the 
 portraiture of classes than of individuals marked by the purest taste enlivened by 
 a gaiety of disposition still unclouded sweetened by a temper that nothing could 
 ruffle presenting, especially, perhaps the single instance of one distinguished for 
 colloquial powers never occupying above a few moments at a time of his company's 
 attention, and never ceasing to speak that all his hearers did not wish him to go on 
 it rn^y fairly be said that his conversation was the highest enjoyment which the 
 more refined society of London and of Paris afforded. No man, accordingly, was 
 more courted by all classes; no loss was ever felt more severely than his decease; 
 and no place in the most choice circles of literary and political commerce is so 
 likely long to remain vacant. 
 
 The school of Mr. Bentham has numbered among its disciples, apostles of his 
 doctrine, others of eminent merit, of whom unhappily death, by removing one of 
 the chief, enables us to speak, however difficult it may be to speak of him as his 
 great merits deserve. When the system of legal polity was to be taught, and the 
 cause of Law Reform to be supported in this country, no one could be found more 
 fitted for this service than Mr. Mill, and to him more than to any other person has 
 been owing the diffusion of those important principles and their rapid progress in 
 England. He was a man of extensive and profound learning; thoroughly imbued 
 with the doctrines of metaphysical and ethical science; conversant above most men 
 with the writings of the ancient philosophers, whose language he familiarly knew; 
 and gifted with an extraordinary power of application, which had made entirely 
 natural to him a life of severe and unremitting study. His literary pursuits had 
 originally directed him chiefly to subjects connected with moral and political philoso- 
 phy; but his attention being drawn, somewhere about thirty years* ago, to the 
 writings of Mr. Bentham, he speedily devoted to their study the greater part of his 
 time; and, becoming acquainted with their celebrated author, was soon received 
 into his entire confidence, and co-operated with him until his decease in the propa- 
 gation of his philosophy.} It is in the valuable dissertations which Mr. Mill con- 
 tributed to the Encyclopaedia Uritannica that the fruits of his labours in this field 
 are stored for public use; and no one can rise from the perusal of them without being 
 convinced that a more clear and logical understanding was never brought to bear 
 upon an important subject, than he lent to the diffusion of his master's doctrines. 
 His admirable works on the Principles of Political Economy, and of Moral Phi- 
 losophy, entitle him perhaps to a higher place among the writers of his age; but 
 neither these nor his History of British India, the greatest monument of his learn- 
 ing and industry, can rie with his discourses on Jurisprudence in usefulness to the 
 cause of general improvement, which first awakened the ardour of his vigorous 
 mind, and on which its latest efforts reposed. His style was better adapted to 
 didactic works, and works of abstract science, than to history; for he had no powers 
 of narrative, and was not successful in any kind of ornamental composition. He 
 was slenderly furnished with fancy, and far more capable of following a train of 
 reasoning, expounding the theories of others, and pursuing them to their legitimate 
 consequences, than of striking out new paths, and creating new objects, or even 
 adorning the creations of other men's genius. With the single exception that ho 
 had something of the dogmatism of tlie school, ho was a person of most praise- 
 worthy candour in controversy, always of such self-denial that he sunk every selfish 
 consideration in his anxiety for the success of any cause which he espoused, and 
 ever ready to the utmost extent of his faculties, and often beyond the force of hid 
 
 1*03 or 1603. 
 
 t To bin HOP, Mr. Jo'm Mill, we owe tlic preparation of Mr. Bcntlum's second work, 
 the Rationale of Evidence, which IH admirably executed.
 
 512 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 constitution, to lend his help for its furtherance. In all the relations of private life 
 he was irreproachable; and he afforded a rare example of one born in humble cir- 
 cumstances, and struggling, during the greater part of his laborious life, with the 
 inconveniences of restricted means, nobly maintaining an independence as absolute 
 in all respects as that of the first subject in the land an independence, indeed, 
 which but few of the pampered children of rank and wealth are ever seen to enjoy. 
 For he could at all times restrain his wishes within the limits of his resources; was 
 firmly resolved that his own hands alone should ever minister to his wants; and 
 would, at every period of his useful and virtuous life, have treated with indignation 
 any project that should trammel his opinions or his conduct with the restraints 
 which external influence, of whatever kind, could impose. 
 
 In Parliament the principles of law reform made at first a slower, but afterwards 
 a rapid progress, Although Sir Samuel Romilly had at all times habitually applied 
 his mind to the abuses in our systsm, had been all his life a student of general juris- 
 prudence, and had accordingly been always a law reformer, yet he never hesitated 
 in admitting his deep obligations to Mr. Bentham, whose friendship he had so long 
 and so intimately enjoyed, and he would have at once acknowledged himself to be 
 of his school, although his speculations, independently of Mr. Bentham, had taken 
 their natural course. With Mr. Dumont his habits of intercourse through life were 
 still more constant and close; they might, in fact, be said to have passed the greater 
 part of their lives together. When the world sustained the irreparable loss of Sir 
 Samuel's untimely death, his labours in improving the criminal code were most 
 happily continued by Sir James Mackintosh; and it becomes a matter of duty to 
 pass no occasion which presents itself for rendering justice to the exertions strenu- 
 ously and successfully made by this distinguished and excellent person. There 
 are, however, prudential reasons which might seem to dissuade any one from at- 
 tempting to sketch a character that has already been touched by the master-hands 
 of those to whom the features of the original were so familiarly known.* Nor 
 could anything excuse such temerity, but the consideration that the historical na- 
 ture of the present work at once requires such an addition, and forbids its being 
 made by resorting to writings more or less professedly panegyrical. 
 
 To the great subject of the Criminal Law, Sir James Mackintosh brought a mind 
 well versed in the general principles of legal science; an acquaintance with ethi- 
 cal philosophy, indeed with every department of philosophy, perhaps unequalled 
 among his contemporaries; and the singular advantage of having devoted the 
 best years of his life to the administration of justice. His mind was, besides, 
 stored with various knowledge, as well practical as scientific, and, although 
 he had never cultivated the exacter sciences since his early years, yet his origi- 
 nal profession of a physician made the doctrines of Natural Philosophy familiar 
 to him; and if it has been said, and justly said, that no man can be thoroughly 
 acquainted with any one branch of knowledge without having some skill in the 
 others also, to no department of study is this remark so applicable as to that of 
 jurisprudence, which pushes its roots into all the grounds of human science, and 
 spreads its branches over every object that concerns mankind. He was the better 
 prepared for successfully accomplishing the task which he undertook, by the 
 singular absence of all personal virulence, and even factious vehemence, which had 
 uniformly marked his course both in public and private life: it reconciled to him 
 those from whom he most widely differed in his opinions, and tended greatly to 
 disarm the opposition with which his efforts as a Reformer were sure to meet, espe- 
 cially among the members of his own profession. This quality, together with his 
 long experience as a Criminal judge, more than compensated for his inferiority in 
 weight as a legal authority, to his illustrious predecessor, who, although he stood 
 so far at the head of the Bar as to have nothing like a competitor, had yet confined 
 his practice chiefly (o the Courts of Equity, and whose superior influence as a states- 
 man and a debater, might suffer some diminution from the opposition his more 
 severe demeanour was apt to raise. 
 
 On the opposite side of the account were to be set the weaknesses, most of them 
 amiable or accidental in their origin, some of which enfeebled his character, while 
 
 * Lord Abinger, Lord Jeffrey, Mr. Sydney Smith.
 
 LAW REFORM. 513 
 
 others crippled his exertions. His constitution, never robust, had suffered materially 
 from his residence in India. He entered Parliament late in life, and, although 
 always a most able and well informed speaker, occasionally capable of astonishing 
 his audience by displays of the most brilliant kind, he never showed any powers as 
 a debater, and, being more of a rhetorician than an orator, was not even calculated 
 to produce the impression which eloquence alone makes; while, as a practical man 
 of business, in all that related to the details of measures, or the conducting them 
 through Parliament, he was singularly helpless and inefficient. It must be admit- 
 ted that his mild deportment, his candid turn of mind, and the gentleness of his 
 nature, while they might disarm the anger of some adversaries, were calculated to 
 relax the 'Zeal of many friends; and he was extremely deficient both in that political 
 courage which inspires confidence in allies, while it bears down the resistance of 
 enemies, and in that promptitude, the gift of natural quickness, combined witli long 
 practice, which never suffers an advantage to be lost, and turns even a disaster to 
 account. His style of speaking, too, was rather of the epideictic, orexhibitory, than 
 of the argumentative kind; and, as his habitual good nature led him not only to 
 avoid vehement attacks, but to indulge in a somewhat lavish measure of commenda- 
 tion, offence was given to friends more than ever enemies were won over. Even 
 his most celebrated performances were less remarkable for reasoning than for dis- 
 sertation; and the greatest speech he ever made nor was there ever one more 
 eminently striking and successful delivered in Parliament the speech on the 
 Foreign Enlistment Bill in 1819 although abounding in the most profound remarks, 
 and the most enlarged views of policy and of general law, clothed in the happiest 
 language, and enlightened by the most felicitous illustration, was exposed to the 
 criticism of some judges of eloquence, as defective in the grand essential of argu- 
 ment, and of that rapid and vehement declamation which fixes the hearer's attention 
 upon the subject, making the speaker be forgotten, and leaving his art concealed. 
 
 Against the purity of this eminent person's public conduct, no charge whatever 
 was ever fairly brought. Few men, indeed, ever made greater sacrifices to his 
 principles while his party was excluded from power, or were less rewarded for 
 them when that party was admitted to office. He had early joined with those whose 
 sanguine hopes led them to favour the French Revolution, and kept them blind for 
 a season to the enormities of its authors. His " I'indiciic Ga//i'c," a work of con- 
 summate ability, was the offering which he then made on the altar of the divinity 
 whom he worshipped. With most good mon, he afterwards agreed in repudiating 
 indignantly, and as if ashamed of his former friendship, all alliance with the Jacobin 
 party; nor, although he perhaps went somewhat farther in his recantation than 
 others who never had bowed at the same shrine, could he be said ever to have 
 swerved from those liberal principles which were the passion of his early and the 
 guide of his riper years. Upon his return from India, he at once refused the most 
 flattering offers of place from Lord Liverpool's government; and he persevered, with 
 the Whig party, in a long and apparently hopeless opposition to the end of the war, 
 and through fifteen years of the ensuing peace. At length the party for which he 
 had sacrificed so much succeeded to power, and he, though among the very first of 
 its most distinguished members, was almost entirely passed over, while men of 
 little fame, others of hardly any merit at all, and not a few of Tory principles till 
 the moment of the government being formed, were lifted over his head; and planted 
 in the cabinet of the Whigs. In that cabinet, indeed, there must have been some 
 who could not with a steady countenance look down upon him thus excluded, while 
 they wore admitted to unexpected power. His treatment, accordingly, has formed 
 one of tin; greatest charges against the whole arrangements then made, hut justice 
 requires that Lord (Ircy should be acquitted of all blame in this respect; for he had 
 never been in any habits either of personal or of party intercourse with Sir J.unes, 
 and might be supposed to share in the coldness towards him which some of the 
 older Foxites unjustly and unaccountably felt. Hut even those memlx rs of tli<> 
 government, who lived with him in constant habits of friendship, have innch more 
 to urjji! in explanation of this dark passage in the history of the parly tli.m is com- 
 monly imagined; for the objectors do not sufficiently consider, that, while Sir James 
 Mackintosh's health, and aversion to the habits of business required by certain 
 offices, excluded him from these, others arc, by invariable practice, given to high
 
 514 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 rank. The occasion of his being here mentioned, is the invaluable service which 
 he rendered to the cause of Law Reform; a service that must endear his memory to 
 all enlightened statesmen, and all good men, independent of the other assistance for 
 which the rapid progress of liberal principles has to thank him; a progress so bene- 
 ficial to mankind, so profitable to the Whig party at large, so advantageous to a select 
 few of the Tories, now mingled with that Whig party, but so utterly barren of all 
 benefit whatever to Sir James Mackintosh himself. 
 
 After the defects in our legal system had been for many years fully exposed, and 
 the principles upon which their correction should be undertaken had become familiar 
 with the reflecting portion of the community, although some highly valuable improve- 
 ments had been effected by Sir R. Peel, (perhaps as many as his position allowed, 
 surrounded by those who held reform cheap, and those who held it in abhorrence,) 
 these alterations had been chiefly confined to digesting the criminal code, and there 
 seemed no prospect of the great work of general reformation being commenced, 
 unless the attention of Parliament should be seriously directed towards it. The 
 motion of Mr. Brougham for a commission to investigate the whole subject origi- 
 nated in this conviction, and the following is the speech with which it was intro- 
 duced. The view chiefly taken of the subject was intended for practical purposes, 
 and the immediate correction of manifest defects. The evils, inconsistencies, and 
 absurdities of the system of civil procedure were therefore singled out as the prin- 
 cipal object of attack, the rather because, in Mr. Bentham's writings, the other 
 branches of the mighty subject had been more copiously handled, and because it 
 seemed manifest that the radical improvement of the remedies administered by the 
 courts of law must lead to the universal reformation of our jurisprudence, while it 
 afforded, in the meanwhile, substantial benefits to the community, and won over 
 new converts to the great cause of law reform. The abuses in courts of equity had 
 already attracted the attention of Parliament, under the truly able advocacy of Mr. 
 Williams;* and a commission issued in consequence of his exertions had led to a 
 useful though hitherto a sterile report. The defects in our criminal law had, since 
 the labours o'f Sir S. Romilly and SirJ. Mackintosh, ceased to find defenders in any 
 quarter. The present motion produced the immediate appointment of the two great 
 commissions of common law inquiry, and inquiry into the law of real property, 
 from whose labours have proceeded all the important changes recently made in our 
 legal system; and in the course of a very few years the reform of the criminal law, 
 and the general subject of codification was committed to the jurisdiction of a third 
 commission, whose reports have led to all the mitigations lately effected in the en- 
 actments of our penal code. 
 
 The Notes appended to the following speech will show how far the defects which 
 it points out have already been remedied, and will consequently enable us to ob- 
 serve what admitted imperfections still remain to be removed. It appears that of 
 about sixty capital defects pointed out, about fifty-five either have already been re- 
 moved in whole, or in by much the greater part, by act of Parliament, or are in the 
 course of being removed by bills now before Parliament, and which are quite certain 
 to pass during the present session. 
 
 The speech upon local courts which follows, was delivered on bringing in the 
 bill for 1830. That bill was then read a first time; and, early in the next session, 
 Mr. Brougham having been removed to the upper House, he introduced it there. 
 The subject of Parliamentary Reform engrossing the whole attention of Parliament 
 and the country during the two next sessions, the Common Law Commissioners 
 were directed to consider the subject, which they fully investigated, and illustrated 
 by a valuable body of evidence, from both professional and mercantile men, adding 
 the sanction of their own high authority to the measure. It was, accordingly, 
 pressed upon the attention of the House of Lords, in the session of 1833, and, 
 
 * Now Mr. Justice Williams.
 
 LAW REFORM. 515 
 
 having undergone full discussion on the second reading, and in the committee, 
 where its details were all settled, it was unfortunately thrown out by a majority of 
 two, on the third reading. 
 
 The Common Law Commissioners were originally, Messrs. Bosanquet, Parke, 
 Alderson, and Sergeant Stephen. Upon the three first being raised to the bench, 
 Messrs. F. Pollock, Starkie, Evans, and Wightman were added to the commission. 
 
 The Real Property Commissioners are, Sir J. Campbell, Messrs. Tinney, San- 
 ders, Duval, Hodgson, Duckworth, Brodie, and Tyrrell. 
 
 The Criminal Law Commissioners are, Messrs. Starkie, Austin, Ker, Amos, 
 Jardine, and Wightman.
 
 SPEECH 
 
 ON THE 
 
 PRESENT STATE OF THE LAW. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 
 FEBRUARY 7, 1828. 
 
 IN rising to address the House upon one of the most important 
 subjects that can possibly be submitted to the legislature, I feel at the 
 same time deeply impressed with the conviction, that it is also one of 
 the most difficult, and certainly the largest, that could engage its atten- 
 tion. I am aware that I stand engaged to bring before you the whole 
 state of the Common Law of this country (the Common Law, I call 
 it, in contradistinction to Equity), with the view of pointing out those 
 defects which may have existed in its original construction, or which 
 time may have engendered, as well as of considering the remedies 
 appropriate to correct them. Nothing, I do assure you, at all 
 strengthens and bears me up under the pressure of this vast and over- 
 whelming burthen, but a conviction of the paramount importance, 
 nay, the absolute necessity, of no longer delaying the inquiry, or 
 postponing the needful amendments; and the intimate persuasion I 
 feel, that I shall be able so to deal with the subject (such is my deep 
 veneration for all that is good in our judicial system, and my habitual 
 respect for those in whose hands the administration of it is placed), as 
 neither to offend the prejudices of one class, nor vex the personal feel- 
 ings of another. But I feel a confidence, also, which is unspeakable, 
 resting on another ground. I come not here to raise cavils before 
 men ignorant of the details and niceties of the profession I belong to, 
 and who, in that unavoidable ignorance, would be unfit judges of 
 their merits; I am determined to avail myself in no respect of their 
 situation, or of the absence of the learned Body of the Profession, 
 for the sake of a futile and pitiful triumph over what is most valuable 
 in our jurisprudence. lam comforted and confirmed in my resolu- 
 tion, by the accidental circumstances that have joined me, in some 
 sort, to the administration of the law in which I have had so consider-
 
 LAW REFORM. 517 
 
 able an experience. I have seen so much of its practical details, that 
 it is, in rny view, no speculative matter whether for blame or praise. 
 I pledge myself, through the whole course of my statements, as long 
 as the House may honour me with its attention, in no one instance to 
 make any observation, to bring forward any grievance, or mark any 
 defect, of which I am not myself competent to speak from personal 
 knowledge. I do not merely say, from observation as a bystander; I 
 limit myself still further, and confine myself to causes in which I 
 have been counsel for one party or the other. By these considera- 
 tions emboldened on the one hand, and on the other impressed with 
 a becoming sense of the arduous duty I have undertaken in this 
 weighty matter, I will, without further preface, go on, in the first 
 place, to state the points which I intend to avoid. 
 
 I shall ornit Equity in every branch, unless where I may be com- 
 pelled to mention it incidentally, from its interference with the course 
 of the Common Law, not that I think nothing should be done as to 
 Equity, but because in some sort it has been already taken up by 
 Parliament. A commission sat and inquired into the subject, and 
 produced a report, received though not yet acted upon. The noble 
 and learned lord who presides in the other House, has announced his 
 intention of proposing a bill, founded on that report. I may also 
 add, that the subject has, to his own great honour, and to the lasting 
 benefit of the country, been for many years in the hands of my 
 honourable and learned friend, the member for Durham;* it is still 
 with him, and 1 trust his care of it will not cease. 
 
 For reasons of a like kind, I pass over the great head of Criminal 
 Law. That inquiry, happily for the country, since the time when 
 first Sir Samuel Romilly (a name never to be pronounced by any 
 without veneration, nor ever by me without sorrow) devoted his 
 talents and experience to it, has been carried forward by my honour- 
 able and learned friend the member for Knaresborongh,t with various 
 success, until at length he reaped the fruit of his labours, and pre- 
 vailed upon this House, by a narrow majority, to bend its attention 
 towards so great a subject. On a smaller scale, on one indeed of a 
 very limited nature, these inquiries have been since followed up by 
 the right honourable gentleman who is now again Secretary of State 
 for the home department.^ It is not so much far anything he has 
 actually done, that I feel disposed to thank him, as for the countenance 
 he has given to the subject. He has power, from his situation, to 
 effect reforms which others hardly dare propose. His connections in 
 the church and state render his services in this department almost 
 invaluable. They have tended to silence the clamours that would 
 otherwise have been raised against the reform of the law, and might 
 possibly have proved fatal to it. If (which I do not believe) he in- 
 tended to limit his efforts to what he has already accomplished; if he 
 were disposed to say, "Thus far have I gone, and no further can I go 
 with you," the gratitude of his country would still be due to him in 
 
 * Mr. M. A. Taylor. f Sir James Mackintosh. $ Sir Robert Peel. 
 VOL. I. 4 t
 
 513 LAW REFORM. 
 
 an eminent degree, for having abashed the worst enemies of improve- 
 ment by his countenance and support. But I trust he will again 
 direct the energies of his mind to the great work of reformation, and 
 bestow his exertions over a wider space. 
 
 Another reason for avoiding this part of the subject altogether, is 
 to be found in the nature and objects of the Criminal Law. I do not 
 think it right to unsettle the minds of those numerous and ignorant 
 classes, on whom its sanctions are principally intended to operate. 
 It might produce no good effects if they were all at once to learn, that 
 the Criminal Law in the mass, as it were, had been sentenced to 
 undergo a revision that the whole Penal Code was unsettled and 
 about to be remodelled. 
 
 I intend also to leave out of my view the Commercial Law. It 
 lies within a narrow compass, and it is far purer and freer from 
 defects than any other part of the system. This arises from its later 
 origin. It has grown up within two centuries, or little more, and 
 been formed by degrees, as the exigency of mercantile affairs required. 
 It is accepted, too, in many of its main branches, by other states, 
 forming a code common to all trading nations, and which cannot 
 easily be changed without their general consent. Accordingly, the 
 provisions of the French Civil Code, unsparing as they were of the 
 old municipal law, excepted the law merchant, generally speaking, 
 from the changes which they introduced. 
 
 Lastly, sir, the law of real property forms no immediate subject of 
 my present consideration; not that I shall not have much to propose 
 intimately connected with it, and many illustrations to derive from it; 
 but I am flattered with the hope that the Secretary for the Home 
 Department intends himself, on this subject, to bring forward certain 
 measures, by which the present system will eventually undergo salu- 
 tary alterations: And I cannot help here saying, that whatever the 
 criminal law owes to the persevering and enlightened exertions of the 
 late Sir Samuel Romilly, and of his successor, the member for Knares- 
 borough,* I am sure an almost equal debt of gratitude has been 
 incurred on the part of the law of real property, to the honest, 
 patient, and luminous discussion which it has received from one of 
 the first conveyancers and lawyers this country could ever boast of. 
 My honourable and learned friend (the Solicitor-General)! opposite, 
 and those members of the House who are conversant with our pro- 
 fession, will easily understand that I can only allude to Mr. Humphreys. 
 
 With these exceptions, which I have now stated as shortly as I was 
 able, and for which I shall offer no apology, because it was absolutely 
 necessary that I should begin by making the scope of my present pur- 
 pose understood, I intend to bring all the Law as administered in our 
 Courts of Justice under the review of the House; and to this ample 
 task I at once proceed. But I shall not enlarge, after the manner of 
 some, on the infinite importance and high interest which belong to the 
 
 * Sir James Mackintosh. 
 
 | Sir N. Tindal (now Lord Chief-Justice of Common Pleas.)
 
 LAW REFORM. 519 
 
 question, and the attention which it, of right, claims from us, whether 
 we be considered as a branch of the government, or as the represen- 
 tatives of the people, or as a part of the people ourselves. It would 
 be wholly superfluous; for every one must at once admit, that if we 
 view the whole establishments of the country the government by the 
 king and the other estates of the realm, the entire system of admin- 
 istration, whether civil or military, the vast establishments of land 
 and of naval force by which the State is defended, our foreign nego- 
 tiations, intended to preserve peace with the world, our domestic 
 arrangements, necessary to make the government respected by the 
 people, or our fiscal regulations, by which the expense of the whole 
 is to be supported, all shrink into nothing, when compared with the 
 pure, and prompt, and cheap administration of justice throughout the 
 community. I will indeed make no such comparison; I will not put 
 in contrast things so inseparably connected; for all the establishments 
 formed by our ancestors, and supported by their descendants, were 
 invented and are chiefly maintained, in order that justice may be duly 
 administered between man and man. And, in my mind, lie was 
 guilty of no error, he was chargeable with no exaggeration, he was 
 betrayed by his fancy into no metaphor, who once said, that all we 
 see about us, King, Lords, and Commons, the whole machinery of the 
 State, all the apparatus of the system, and its varied workings, end in 
 simply bringing twelve good men into a box. Such the administra- 
 tion of justice is the cause of the establishment of government such 
 is the use of government: it is this purpose which can alone justify 
 restraints on natural liberty it is this only which can excuse constant 
 interference with the rights and the property of men. I invite you 
 then, sir, to enter upon an unsparing examination of this mighty sub- 
 ject; I invite the House to proceed with me, first of all, into the dif- 
 ferent courts to mark what failures in practice are to be found in the 
 system, as it was originally framed, as well as what errors time has 
 engendered by occasioning a departure from that system; and after- 
 ward to consider whether we may not safely and usefully apply to 
 those defects remedies of a seasonable and temperate nature, restoring 
 what is decayed, if it be good lopping oil' what experience has proved 
 to lie pernicious. 
 
 I. i. In the first place, let us proceed to the Courts in Westminster 
 hall, and observe the course pursued in them. The House is aware 
 that, whatever may have been the original of our three great Common 
 Law Courts, they now deal with nearly the same description of suits; 
 and that, though the jurisdiction of each was at first separate and con- 
 fined within very narrow limits, their functions are now nearly the 
 same. The jurisdiction of the Court of King's Bench, for example, 
 was originally confined to Pleas of the Crown, and then extended 
 to actions where violence was used, actions of trespass by force; but 
 now all actions are admissible within its walls, through the medium 
 of a legal fiction, adopted for the purpose of enlarging its authority, 
 that every person sued is in the custody of the Marshal of the Court, 
 and may, therefore, bo proceeded against for any personal cause of
 
 520 LAW REFORM. 
 
 action. Thus, by degrees, this Court has drawn over to itself actions 
 which really belong to the great forum of ordinary actions between 
 subject and subject, as its name implies, the Court of Common Pleas. 
 The Court of Common Pleas, however, in its exertions for extending 
 its business, was not so fortunate as its rival; for, though it made a 
 vigorous attempt, under Lord Chief Justice North, to enlarge its sphere, 
 it never was able to obtain cognizance of the peculiar subject of King's 
 Bench jurisdiction Crown Pleas. 
 
 I hope, sir, the House will allow me, for the sake of a little diver- 
 tisement in the midst of so dry a matter, to state the nature of the con- 
 test between the two courts, as described by Roger North in his 
 biography of the Lord Keeper, a work of amusement with which I 
 am sure my learned friend (the Solicitor-General) is as well acquainted 
 as he is with the subtleties of his profession. 
 
 It appears from his account, that the Courts of King's Bench and 
 Common Pleas had quarrelled as to their respective provinces; for he 
 says, " The Court of Common Pleas had been outwitted by the King's 
 Bench, till his lordship came upon the cushion, and that by our artifice 
 in process called ac etiams. His lordship used the same artifice in 
 the process of his court, where it was as good law as above. But 
 Hale exclaimed against it, and called it altering the process of law; 
 which very same thing his own court had done, and continued to do 
 every day."* In another place he tells how, "The two courts being 
 upon terms of competition, the King's Bench outwitted ihe Common 
 Pleas;" and how the latter '-'invented a shift" against the King's Bench. 
 " There," says he, " the Common Pleas thought they had nicked them. 
 But the King's Bench was not so sterile of invention as to want the 
 means of being even with that device;" and he shows how conclud- 
 ing with this remark "The late Chief Justice, Sir Orlando Bridgman, 
 and his officers of the Common Pleas, gave this way of proceeding by 
 the King's Bench very ill language, calling it an arbitrary alteration 
 of the form of legal process, and utterly against law. But the losers 
 might speak; they got nothing else; and the Triccum in lege carried 
 it for the King's Bench; which court, as I said, ran away with all the 
 business."! 
 
 The Exchequer has adopted a similar course: for, though it was 
 originally confined to the trial of revenue cases, it has, by means of 
 another fiction the supposition that every body sued is a debtor to 
 the crown, and further that he cannot pay his debt because the other 
 party will not pay him opened its doors to every suitor, and so 
 drawn to itself the right of trying cases that were never intended to 
 be placed within its jurisdiction. 
 
 The first state of the courts being that of distinct jurisdiction, then 
 of course this separation of provinces was praised; afterwards, all 
 distinction became obsolete, and then the conflict and competition 
 were as much commended: and with far greater reason, if the com- 
 petition were real; but it is almost purely speculative. In the first 
 
 * North's Lives of Lord Keeper Guilford, &c., vol. i, p. 130. | Ibid., p. 203.
 
 LAW REFORM. 521 
 
 place, the Court of Common Pleas shuts its door to many practitioners 
 of the law, by requiring that a certain proportion of fees should be 
 advanced at a much earlier stage in the cause than is customary in 
 the oilier courts.* For who is it that must advance this money? 
 Either the attorney himself, if it be his own cause, must pay the 
 money out of his own pocket, or, if he is acting as agent for a country 
 practitioner, he must begin by laying out the money long before he 
 can draw upon his employer for reimbursement, and he is not, in all 
 cases, sure of being repaid for those advances. In the second place, 
 clients and their attorneys are induced not to carry causes into the 
 Common Pleas, by the strict monopoly that exists in the advocates of 
 that court. t I have every wish to speak with all respect of the 
 learned persons who there engross the practice; but as, no doubt, 
 solicitors will have their favourites, and as, possibly, their clients may 
 also have their favourites, the practice not being open to all barristers, 
 prevents many suitors from resorting to a court where no one can be 
 employed for them, at least in term time, except he be a sergeant; 
 and great as the learning of that body is known to be, well founded 
 as their reputation is for skill and for zeal, as well as for legal know- 
 ledge, yet the exclusive right which they exercise operates to keep 
 away business from the court; and thus it has happened both that 
 other advocates seldom practise there at Nisi Prius where the court 
 is open, and that much fewer suits are carried to the Common Pleas 
 than to the King's Bench. The causes which thus operate to shut 
 the doors of that court must be removed, before it can hope to have 
 its fair share of practice. 
 
 The Exchequer, in like manner, has its drawbacks, though they 
 operate in another way. There is one reason why, as at present 
 constituted, it cannot do much business, or have the high reputation 
 which it ought to enjoy; I mean the mixture of various suits which 
 are cognizable in it. It is in fact, a court of all sorts of equity and 
 of law of revenue law and of ordinary law of law between sub- 
 ject and subject, as well as of law between the subject and the crown. 
 This makes suitors, seeing the business done in so many different 
 ways, come to the conclusion that it is not well done in any. I do 
 not by any means assert that this is a correct opinion, at the present 
 time; because the judges and the barristers employed in that court 
 do not, I am convinced, yield to any body of professional men in 
 their knowledge of equity and law. There are to be found on its 
 bench highly distinguished equity and common lawyers; men of 
 known legal talents, and the greatest experience both in Chancery 
 praciice, in Nisi Prius, and in criminal law. In what, therefore, I 
 have said, I refer merely to that species of public opinion, which, 
 whether right or wrong, has been engendered by the constitution of 
 the court; I refer, also, to the natural tendency of a jurisdiction, thus 
 
 This evil has since been remedied by the new orders of the Judges under an 
 Act of Parliament. 
 
 j This monopoly was abolished in 1832, when the Common Pleas was thrown 
 open. 
 
 44*
 
 522 LAW REFORM. 
 
 open to such a variety of jurisprudence, to degenerate into inaccu- 
 racy, or want of effective skill in each department. But there is 
 another and more obvious reason why this court does not obtain so 
 much business as the others; I mean the limited number of attorneys 
 belonging to and allowed to practise in it.* If there is cause to 
 complain, as I have been doing, of the monopoly among the advo- 
 cates attached to the Common Pleas, there is much more cause for a 
 similar complaint touching the attorneys in the Exchequer. The prac- 
 titioners in that court are four attorneys and sixteen clerks, and none 
 others are allowed to practise there; if a country attorney wishes to 
 take his cause thither, the only mode by which he can do so, is to 
 employ one of the privileged attorneys of the court, and divide with 
 him the profits of the suit. It is needless to say that such a system 
 has, of necessity, a tendency at once to shut the doors of the Court 
 of Exchequer against the suitors. 
 
 What, then, is the natural consequence of these restrictions which 
 prevent suitors from approaching the Courts of Common Pleas and 
 Exchequer? Why, it is this wherever there is but little business 
 done in any court, those in power are induced not to place the strong- 
 est judge in that situation; then, the small portion of business to be 
 done renders the judge less fit for his office; and so, by action and 
 reaction, while the little business makes the bench and the bar less 
 able, the inferior ability of the court still further reduces that little 
 business. 1 arn here speaking of past times, but with a view, how- 
 ever, to what may occur at a future period. We may not always 
 have the Bench so well filled as it is at present. The time may 
 come when, if a judge were to be made, in consequence of political 
 influence, who was known not to be capable of properly filling the 
 office, it might be said by those who supported him, ' Oh it does not 
 matter send him to the Court of Exchequer he will have nothing 
 to do there." Thus the small portion of business transacted the 
 suspicion originating from the general mixture of suits carried on in 
 different ways, that the business is not well done the monopoly of 
 attorneys, together with several other causes, occasions this court to 
 be the least frequented of any; indeed, it has now scarcely anything 
 to engage its attention. The judges do not sit for more than half an 
 hour some mornings, and there are hardly ever on the paper more 
 than six or seven causes for trial after term; a dozen would be con- 
 sidered a large entry ;t when I well remember Lord Ellenborough 
 having 588 set down for trial in London only; and the present Lord 
 Chief Justice lately had on his paper no less than 850 untried causes. 
 I mention this to support my proposition, that there is not really a 
 free competition between the different courts. To say, in the cir- 
 cumstances which I have stated, that suitors have a free access to all 
 the courts equally, is a fiction an assertion adapted to what ought 
 
 * This monopoly has also been put an end to. 
 
 f The entry of Exchequer causes is now fully equal to that of the King's Bench. 
 Lord Lyndhurst's talents greatly aided the Law Reform in producing this result.
 
 LAW REFORM. 523 
 
 to be, perhaps to what is intended, but certainly not founded on the 
 fact. 
 
 Experiments have been trird to lighten the business of the Court of 
 King's Bench; but I do not find that any of them have answered the 
 purpose for which they were instituted. The first of these attempts 
 was made in the year 1S21, when it was arranged tlmt the Chief Jus- 
 tice should sit in one court, and a Puisne Judge in another, at the 
 same time; but never did any arrangement fail more completely. 
 The court in which the Puisne Judge sat remained almost idle, while 
 the other court was as constantly preferred, and nearly as much over- 
 loaded as before. Little else was effected but a great inconvenience 
 both to practitioners and suitors, by the passing and repassing from 
 court to court. In fact, it is not in the power of the courts, even 
 were all monopolies and other restrictions done away, to distribute 
 business equally, as long as the suitors are left free to choose their 
 tribunal. There will always be a favourite court; and the circum- 
 stance of its being preferred tends to make it more deserving of pre- 
 ference; for if the favour towards it began in mere caprice, the great 
 amount of business draws thither the best practitioners, to say nothing 
 of judges; and the better the court, the greater will be its business. 
 The same action and reaction will operate favourably, which I before 
 showed in its unfavourable effects where a court was declining Pos- 
 sunt quia posse videntur. The experiment of 1S21 having failed 
 entirely, was not repeated. 
 
 Another attempt has subsequently been made to relieve the Court 
 of King's Bench from the pressure of Term business, which must 
 always bear a proportion to the Nisi Prius causes. This system is 
 still going on under the bill brought into the House by the present 
 Chancellor, and of which, though he was induced to patronise it offi- 
 cially when Solicitor-General, I have reason to believe he never much 
 approved. As this arrangement is compulsory, the client having no 
 choice, it cannot well fail; but I heartily wish that it had failed, for it 
 has done much mischief, and is certainly one of the worst changes 
 that has ever taken place. It is true, the great pressure of business 
 requires that something should be done; but it is equally true that 
 the right thing has not been adopted; for, where the King's Bench 
 sits, with the Chief Justice presiding where the suitor's resort 
 where the bar is mustered where the public attend where all the 
 counsel and attorneys appear where the business is disposed of as it 
 ought to be, gravely and deliberately, with the eyes of mankind, with 
 the eyes of the bar, as well as of the world at large, turned on the 
 proceedings, would not every otic point to that as the place in which 
 all important legal questions ought to be decided? Would not any 
 one, on the other hand, say, if another court were constituted in a sort 
 of hack room, where three judges were sitting where the only per- 
 sons present, besides the judges, were the counsel and attorney em- 
 ployed on cither side of the cause that was pending where there 
 was no audience, and the public eye was entirely directed, not upon 
 \A\{from that to the other court would not any one, 1 ask, declare
 
 524 LAW REFORM. 
 
 that a court, so circumstanced, was the place in which the trifling 
 business alone should be transacted? These, I think, would be but 
 natural conclusions; and yet if the matter be stated exactly the other 
 way, it will be far nearer the truth. Of the really important business, 
 as regards both its difficulty and importance to the law, and indeed 
 to the suitor, a very large proportion is done in that back room, and 
 before those three judges. It is done in a corner, and, I may say, 
 disposed of behind people's backs, with only the attendance of the at- 
 torney and barrister on each side, or at most, with the presence of 
 these and of the practitioners waiting for the next cause; and as the 
 court is not frequented by the public any more than the profession, 
 the business may certainly be said to be transacted without due pub- 
 licity and solemnity. Thus we see that by this arrangement, while 
 the most interesting matter is overlooked, trifling business and points 
 of no importance are brought forward with all possible observation; 
 a motion for judgment as against the casual ejector, which is a mo- 
 tion of course a motion to refer a bill to the Master to compute prin- 
 cipal and interest for judgment, as in case of a nonsuit and a thou- 
 sand others, either of course or of the most trifling moment, are heard 
 with the utmost publicity before the whole court before the whole 
 bar before the whole body of attorneys before the whole public 
 all of which might be settled by the three judges in a corner, or by 
 any one of their clerks. The consequence is, that much time is lost 
 to the full court, while the most important business special argu- 
 ments raising the greatest legal questions new trials, involving both 
 matters of law and fact, affecting large interests; and the Crown-paper, 
 comprehending all the questions from Sessions, are obliged to be heard 
 in the private and unsatisfactory manner I have described. I wish 
 this system to be remedied, because it is a great and growing evil.* 
 
 It may be said that the judges have not time to do the business. I 
 deny that: there is time. Six hours a-day, well employed, would be 
 amply sufficient for all purposes. Let them come down to the court 
 at ten o'clock in the morning, and remain till four a period of six 
 hours and the business may be done. But the system is at present 
 extremely ill-arranged, and I will show how, without having any one 
 to blame for it. The judges do their utmost, but they cannot remedy 
 the evil without your aid. Let us see how their time is employed. 
 They are supposed to come to the court at ten o'clock, and to remain 
 there till four. Surely this time may safely be pronounced to be suffi- 
 cient for the transaction of their business. Then why have they not 
 these six hours? There are two reasons for it, the one is, that bail 
 must be taken by a judge. Mr. Justice Buyley, no longer ago than 
 last Monday, was occupied the whole day in the Bail Court; and this 
 morning Mr. Justice Holroyd was not able to get away till twelve 
 o'clock. I cite these instances of late occurrence, sir, that you may 
 see how closely I desire to keep by the actually existing state of the 
 
 * This evil has since been remedied; the sittings of the three Puisne Judges 
 being abolished.
 
 LAW REFORM. 525 
 
 facts; bnt every week furnishes examples as well as the present. 
 Thus, then, we see that in one case a whole day was lost, as far as 
 regards a full court, and in another, two hours, merely for the purpose 
 of attending to trifling business, which might just as well be trans- 
 acted by a commissioner, say a barrister often years' standing. The 
 other reason why the judges' time is misspent, arises from chamber 
 business, which consists in the learned judges, the profound lawyers, 
 the great magistrates, whose names I have made free to mention, sit- 
 ting at Sergeants' Inn to hear the squabbles of attorneys, and the clerks 
 of attorneys among themselves for barristers rarely attend. This 
 takes them in rotation away from the court at three o'clock; so that, 
 in fact, while their nominal time is from ten to four, they are only, on 
 the average, really present from eleven or twelve to three, by which 
 means, instead of transacting business during six hours, the time is 
 reduced to three, or at most four hours per day.* And what, sir, is 
 the inference from all this? Obvious enough, certainly; for though it 
 may be fairly contended that the business of the Bail Court could be 
 transacted by a commissioner, it may perhaps be doubted whether the 
 chamber practice does not require a judge to perform it, considering 
 the points to be disposed of, and the persons to be controlled. There 
 may, therefore, be a sufficient excuse for the arrangement, as matters 
 stand at present, and yet a remedy may be necessary, as it may cer- 
 tainly be found in changing the circumstances. For my own part, I 
 frankly confess that I am one of those who do not see the paramount 
 excellence that some suppose to be vested in the number twelve; al- 
 though Lord Coke has spoken of it with a degree of rapture like that 
 of the algebraist, when he dwells upon the marvellous powers of three 
 or of nine. Twelve appears to be the number, in his view, connected 
 with all that is important and venerable, either sacred or profane, an- 
 cient or modern; but as I, unfortunately, do not possess the lights by 
 which he was guided, I cannot help thinking that fourteen is a much 
 better number than twelve, although it may not be so good for divi- 
 sion; and although I cannot quote the fourteen Apostles, or the four- 
 teen Tables, or the fourteen wise men. It will, indeed, divide by 
 seven, which is more than can be said of twelve; but I rely not upon 
 that superiority: it has another arithmetical quality of more import- 
 ance. Though neither so divisible nor so beautiful, nor so classical 
 as twelve, it contains two more units than twelve beats it by two 
 beyond all doubt or cavil; and that superiority recommends it for my 
 present purpose. If twelve was beautiful in the days of Lord Coke, 
 fourteen must now, I fear, on this account, take its place; for how any 
 one can suppose that twelve men are able to do now what they wcro 
 only enough to do centuries ago, is to me matter of astonishment; now, 
 that they have seven or eight hundred causes to try, where they for- 
 merly had but thirty or forty, and when we know that in the time of 
 Lord Mansfield, in the late reign, sixty was reckoned a fair entry. t 
 
 * This also has been remedied; the judges sitting in rotation, term about, at 
 chamber** the whole day, and no judge leaving the. court. 
 \ The number of judges has been now incrcasod to fifteen.
 
 526 LAW REFORM. 
 
 This, sir, is one of the illustrations which I would give to expose the 
 heedless folly of those who charge the bench and the bar with causing 
 all the delays in legal proceedings. How can it be expected that 
 twelve judges can go through the increased arid increasing business 
 now, when the affairs of men are so extended and multiplied in every 
 direction, the same twelve, and at one time fifteen, having been not 
 much more than sufficient for the comparatively trifling number of 
 causes tried two or three centuries ago? But there is a far more un- 
 thinking and more dangerous prejudice, to which the same topic is a 
 complete refutation, I mean the outcry against innovation, set up as 
 often as any one proposes those reforms rendered necessary by the 
 changes that time, the great innovator, is perpetually making, Tern- 
 pus novator rerum. Those who advise an increase of the judges 
 beyond their present number are not innovators. The innovators 
 are, in truth, those who would stand still while the world is going for- 
 ward, who would only employ the same number of labourers while 
 the harvest has increased tenfold, who, adhering to the ancient sys- 
 tem of having but twelve judges, although the work for them to do 
 has incalculably increased, refuse to maintain the original equality, 
 the pristine fitness of the means to the end, the old efficiency and ade- 
 quacy of the establishment; but they are not innovators who would 
 apply additional power when the pressure exceeds all former bounds, 
 who, when the labour is changed, would alter the force of work- 
 men employed, and thus preserve the proportions that originally ex- 
 isted in the judicial system, who would most literally keep things as 
 they were, or return them to their primitive state by restoring and 
 perpetuating their former adaptation and harmony. The advantage 
 of the addition I am recommending will become the more evident 
 when I have to consider the Welsh judicature, which I believe to be 
 the worst that was ever established. Why should not the two judges 
 be received amongst the others, and divide the Welsh circuits with 
 the old ones?* Not that I mean they should always take those cir- 
 cuits, but each might take them in his turn, as each in his turn might 
 sit in the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas, and at the Old 
 Bailey, beside dividing with the chiefs the sittings at Nisi Prius.t 
 
 That the King's Bench paper is now far too heavy, there cannot 
 be a donbt, and so it will always be. No one judge can get through 
 the mass of causes entered in the King's Bench, trying them patiently, 
 and really hearing them to an end. Depend upon it, when more 
 have been tried in the same time, they have been half heard, and 
 forced to compromise or reference. Now, if you will have two 
 judges sitting at Nisi Priiis at once, each of them taking a particular 
 class of trials the one confining himself to the heavy business, and 
 
 * This has now become the law. 
 
 f The three Puisne Judges thus sitting in Bane, the fourth would each term take 
 bail and insolvents and common motions in the morning 1 , and chamber business 
 afterwards; he would also take the sittings in Term, a serious inconvenience at pre- 
 sent.* 
 
 * It is so now.
 
 LAW REFORM. 527 
 
 the other to bills of exchange, promissory-note cases, and undefended 
 causes generally the whole business of the court could be got 
 through both thoroughly and wiih despatch;* but as the law now 
 stands, it is utterly impossible for any man, in days consisting of no 
 more than twenty-four hours, and labouring for eleven months in the 
 year, to dispose of the business before him. I say eleven months; 
 for the court, with the exception of a day or two of respite at Easter, 
 and a week at Christmas, sat for above eleven months last year, 
 taking the circuits as part of the year's work. 
 
 Another obvious distribution might be made without having two 
 judges sitting together in one court. As all real actions have their 
 domicile in the Common Pleas, actions which, in their nature, partake 
 of real actions, as ejectments, trespass to try title, and so forth, might 
 be carried there too. Other suits might be susceptible of a similar 
 classification, as if actions respecting tithes, which are not frequent, 
 bills of exchange, and promissory notes, were carried into the Court 
 of Exchequer. The Lord Chief Baron is allowed, by the 57th of Geo. 
 Ill, to sit in equity and to hear alone all causes and all motions in 
 equity; but he never, in fact, does hear motions, although certainly 
 no lawyer ever sat in that court more fitted to despatch any branch 
 of equity practice than is the present head of the Exchequer.t Were 
 he confined to the equity side, and were another judge, a common 
 lawyer, appointed to preside on the law side of that court, you would 
 have two effective courts, instead of one not very effective for either 
 law or equity.J The Court of Chancery would be materially relieved 
 by this arrangement; while the double good would be found, of the 
 business being better done both on the bench and at the bar, from 
 that expertness which ever attends the division of labour; and of 
 seasonable relief being afforded to both the judges and practitioners 
 of the King's Bench, who would be restored to something of the 
 leisure, at least the moderate professional employment, so favourable 
 to the liberal pursuits and that unfettered study of jurisprudence, 
 which have always formed the most accomplished lawyers. 
 
 There are two observations, sir, which I have to make relative to 
 the judges generally, and which I may as well state now I am upon 
 that subject. I highly approve of paying those learned persons by 
 salaries, and not by fees as a general principle; but so long as it is 
 the practice not to promote the judges, and which I deem essential to 
 the independence of the bench, and so long as the door is thus closed 
 to all ambition, so long must we find a tendency in them, as in all men 
 arrived at their resting place, to become less strenuous in their exer- 
 tions than they would be if some little stimulus were applied to them. 
 They have an irksome and an arduous duty to perform; and, if no mo- 
 tive be held out to them, the natural consequence must be, as long as 
 men are men, that they will have a disposition growing with their 
 years to do as little as possible. I, therefore, would hold out an in- 
 
 It la so now. f Sir W. Alexander. 
 
 This reform has not been introduced.
 
 528 LAW REFORM. 
 
 dncement to them to labour vigorously, by allowing them a certain 
 moderate amount of fees. I say a very moderate amount, a very 
 small addition to their fixed salary would operate as an incentive; 
 and if this were thought expedient, it ought to be so ordered that 
 such fees should not be in proportion to the length of a suit, or the 
 number of its stages, but that the amount should be fixed and defined 
 once for all, in each piece of business finally disposed of. I am quite 
 aware that this mode of payment is not likely to meet with general 
 support, especially with the support of the reformers of the law; but 
 I give the suggestion as the result of long reflection, which has pro- 
 duced a leaning in my mind towards some such plan. I throw out 
 the matter for inquiry, as the fruit of actual observation, and not 
 from any fancy that I have in my own head; but I may also mention, 
 that some friends of the highest rank and largest experience in the 
 profession, agree with me in this point men who are among the 
 soundest and most zealous supporters of reform in the courts of law.* 
 The other general observation that I have to make, with respect to 
 the judges, is of a nature entirely different from the last which I have 
 submitted to the House. The great object of every government, in 
 selecting the judges of the land, should be to obtain the most skilful 
 and learned men in their profession, and, at the same time, the men 
 whose character gives the best security for the pure and impartial ad- 
 ministration of justice. I almost feel ashamed, sir, to have troubled 
 you with such a truism; but the House will presently see the appli- 
 cation I am about to make of it. Sorry am I to say, that our system 
 of judicial promotion sins in both these particulars. Government 
 ought to fill the bench with men taken from among the most learned 
 lawyers and most accomplished advocates men who have both 
 knowledge of the depths of jurisprudence, and sagacity to apply it 
 men who, from experience as leading advocates, possess the power of 
 taking large and enlightened views of questions, and of promptly 
 seizing the bearings of a case. There cannot be a greater error than 
 theirs who fancy that an able advocate makes a bad judge; all expe- 
 rience is against it. The best judges in my time, with the exception 
 of the present Lord Chief Justice,t than whom no man can discharge 
 his office more excellently and efficiently, have all of them been pre- 
 viously distinguished in the profession as advocates. But not only 
 should the choice be unconfined by the legal acquirements and profes- 
 sional habits of the practitioner; there ought not to be, in choosing 
 judges from the bar, any exclusion or restriction. He alone ought to 
 be selected, in whom talent, integrity, and experience most abound, 
 and are best united. The office of judge is of so important and re- 
 sponsible a nature, that one should suppose the members of govern- 
 ment would naturally require that they should be at liberty to make 
 their selection from the whole field of the profession that they would 
 themselves claim to have the whole field open to their choice. Who 
 could believe that a ministry would not eagerly seek to have all men 
 
 * This has not yet been so arranged. f Lord Tenterden.
 
 LAW REFORM. 529 
 
 before them, when their object must be to choose the most able and 
 accomplished? But although this is obvious and undeniable, and 
 although the extension of the minister's search cannot fail to be at- 
 tended with the highest public advantage, as well as the greatest 
 relief to him in performing his (rust, is it the case that any such gene- 
 ral and uncontrolled choice is exercised? Is all the field really open? 
 Are there no portions of the domain excluded from the selector's au- 
 thority? True, no law presents such a search for capacity and worth! 
 True, the doors of Westminster Hall stand open to the minister! He 
 may enter those gates, and choose the ablest and the best man there. 
 Be his talent what it may, be his character what it may, be his party 
 what it may, no man to whom the offer is made will refuse to be a 
 judge. But there is a custom above the law a custom, in my mind, 
 " more honoured in the breach than the observance," that party, as 
 well as merit, must be studied in these appointments. One half of the 
 bar is thus excluded from the competition; for no man can be a judge 
 who is not of a particular party. Unless he be the known adherent 
 of a certain system of government unless he profess himself devoted 
 to one scheme of policy unless his party happen to be the party con- 
 nected with the crown, or allied with the ministry of the day, there is 
 no chance for him; that man is surely excluded. Men must be on 
 one side of the great political question to become judges; and no one 
 may hope to fill that dignified office, unless he belongs to the side on 
 which courtly favour shines; his seat on the bench must depend, gen- 
 erally speaking, on his supporting the leading principles of the exist- 
 ing administration.* 
 
 But perhaps, sir, I may be carrying this distinction too far, and it 
 may be said that the ministers do not expect the opinions of a judge 
 should exactly coincide with theirs in political matters. Be it so; I 
 stop not to cavil about trifles; but, at all events, it must be admitted 
 that, if a man belongs to a party opposed to the views of government; 
 if, which the best and ablest of men, and the fittest for the bench, may 
 well be, he is known for opinions hostile to the ministry, he can ex- 
 pect no promotion rather let me say, the country has no chance of 
 his elevation to the bench, whatever be his talents, or how conspicu- 
 ously soever he may shine in all the most important departments of 
 his profession. No one, I think, will venture to deny this; or, if he 
 do, I defy him to show me any instance in the course of the last hun- 
 dred years, of a man, in party fetters, and opposed to the principles of 
 government, being raised to the bench. No such thing has taken 
 place that 1 know of. Never have I heard of such a tiling, at least 
 in England; though we have, perhaps, known instances of men who 
 have changed their party, to arrive at the heights of their profession. 
 But on this subject, desirous throughout of avoiding all olfence, 1 will 
 not press well, I do not wish to say a woid about it. 
 
 * In 1M1 this practice was broke through, and to the prent benefit of the pro- 
 fession, a Chief Baron appointed from the ranks of the Opposition. 80 the new 
 Bankrupt court was coiiblituted without uny regard to party. 
 
 VOL. i. \ r>
 
 530 LAW REFORM. 
 
 In Scotland, it is true, a more liberal policy has been adopted, and 
 the right honourable gentleman opposite* has done himself great 
 honour by recommending Mr. Gillies, Mr. Cranstoun (now Lords 
 Gillies and Corehouse), and Mr. Clerk (Lord Eldin), all as well known 
 for party men there as Lord Eldon is here,t though, unfortunately, 
 their party has been what is now once more termed the wrong side, 
 but all men of the very highest eminence among the professors of the 
 law. Now, when I quote these instances in Scotland, I want to see 
 examples of the same sort in England; for however great my respect 
 for the law and the people of the north may be, I cannot help think- 
 ing that we of the south too, and our jurisprudence, are of some little 
 importance, and that the administration of justice here may fairly call 
 for some portion of attention. But, sir, what is our system? If, at 
 the present moment, the whole of Westminster Hall were to be called 
 upon, in the event of any vacancy unfortunately occurring among the 
 Chief Justices, to name the man best suited to fill it, to point out the 
 individual whose talents and integrity best deserved the situation 
 whose judicial exertions were the most likely to shed blessings on his 
 country can any one doubt for a moment whose name would be 
 echoed on every side? No; there could be no question as to the indi- 
 vidual to whom would point the common consent of those most com- 
 petent to judge; but then he is known as a party man. and all his 
 merits, were they even greater than they are, would be in vain ex- 
 tolled by his profession, and in vain desiderated by his country. I 
 reprobate this mischievous system, by which the empire loses the ser- 
 vices of some of the ablest, the most learned, and most honest men 
 within its bounds. 
 
 And here let me not be supposed to blame one party more than 
 another; I speak of the practice of all governments in this country; 
 and, I believe, when the Whigs were in office, in 180G, they did not 
 promote to the bench any of their political opponents; they had no 
 vacancies in Westminster Hall to fill up, but in the Welsh judicature 
 they pursued the accustomed course. Now what is the consequence 
 of thus carrying party principles into judicial appointments? The 
 choice of judges is fettered by being confined to half the profession: 
 so that you have less chance of able men; and those you get are of 
 necessity partisans, and therefore less honest and impartial. Why 
 should the whole bench be Ministerial or Tory? No man can desire 
 it to be so, for the purposes of judging over a community, far very 
 far, from being Ministerial or Tory. Yet it must be so, unless vacan- 
 cies should occur during those visits of Whig ministries, "few and 
 far between," when once in a quarter of a century power alights 
 upon that party, and then spreads its wings and flies from them in a 
 few months. Does not this arrangement instil into the minds, both 
 of expectant judges and of men already on the bench, a feeling of 
 
 * Sir R. Peel. 
 
 | Two other instances should be added the learned and venerable Lord Chief 
 Commissioner, who has had the signal happiness of presiding over the introduction 
 of Jury Trial into his native country, and Mr. Cathcart, Lord Allovvay.
 
 LAW REFORM. 531 
 
 party fatal to strict justice in political questions? I speak impartially 
 hut unhesitatingly on this point, for it is perfectly notorious that, now- 
 a-days, whenever a question comes before tiie bench, whether it be 
 upon a prosecution for libel, or upon any other matter connected with 
 politics, the counsel at their meeting take for granted that they can 
 tell pretty accurately the leaning of the court, and predict exactly 
 enough which way the consultation of the judges will terminate, 
 though they may not always discover the particular path which will 
 lead to that termination. While the system I complain of continues, 
 while you suffer it to continue, such a leaning is its necessary conse- 
 quence. The judges have this leaning, they must have it, they can- 
 not help having it, you compel them to have it; you choose them 
 on account of their notoriously having it at the bar; and you vainly 
 hope that they will suddenly put it off, when they rise by its means 
 to the bench. On the contrary, they know they fill a certain situa- 
 tion, and they cannot forget by whom they were placed there, or for 
 what reason. 
 
 There is no doubt that the present judges will always discharge 
 their functions with all the impartiality that any man can expect from 
 them; but I speak without reference to individual habits or prejudices 
 I speak of impressions which it is natural to expect must exist, 
 where circumstances all conspire to create them; I speak too, I must 
 be allowed to say, quite disinterestedly. I cannot take the situation, 
 of a judge I cannot afford it. I speak not for myself, but for the 
 country, because I feel it to be a matter of the deepest importance; 
 and from what I have seen of the right honourable gentleman oppo- 
 site,* I really do hope to see this matter much more maturely weighed 
 than it has heretofore been. 
 
 ii. I am afraid that I have already tired the House with the length 
 of these details; but I must now take my leave for a time of West- 
 minster Hall, and beg of you to mark, in the next place, the manner 
 in which the law is administered in Wales. Why should Wales, be- 
 cause it happens to be termed the Principality, have the rights of pro- 
 perty, and the personal privileges of the inhabitants, dealt with by 
 different judges, and almost by a different system from that which is 
 established in England? In England you have the first men men 
 of the highest education and experience to sit in judgment on life 
 and property. In Wales you have as judges, I will not say inferior 
 men, but certainly not the very first, nor in any respect such as sit 
 upon what Roger North calls the "cushion in Westminster Hall." I 
 shall here show three great defects requiring a remedy most impera- 
 tively. Oftentimes those persons have left the bar and retired to the 
 pursuits of country gentlemen. I do not say that they are for that 
 reason unfit for the office of judge, but still they cannot be so compe- 
 tent as men in the daily administration of the law, and forming part 
 of our Supreme Courts. In some cases they continue in Westminster 
 Hall which is so much the worse, because a man who is a judge 
 
 Sir Robert Peel.
 
 532 LAW REFORM. 
 
 one half the year, and a barrister the other, is not likely to be either a 
 good judge or a good barrister. But a second and greater objection 
 is,.that the Welsh judges never change their circuits. One of them, 
 for instance, goes the Carmarthen circuit, another the Brecon circuit, 
 and a third the Chester circuit but always the same circuit. And 
 what is the inevitable consequence? Why, they become acquainted 
 with the gentry, the magistrates, almost with the tradesmen of each 
 district, the very witnesses who come before them, and intimately with 
 the practitioners, whether counsel or attorneys. The names, the faces, 
 the characters, the histories, of all those persons are familiar to them; 
 and out of this too great knowledge grow likings and prejudices which 
 never can by any possibility cast a shadow across the open, broad, 
 and pure path of the judges of Westminster Hall. Then, again, they 
 have no retiring pensions; and the consequence is, they retain their 
 salaries long after they have ceased to discharge properly the func- 
 tions for which they receive them. Now mark the result of all this. 
 On one of the Welsh circuits, at the last spring Assizes, there were 
 set down no more than forty-six causes for trial; and how many does 
 the House think were disposed of? Only twenty; and of the twenty- 
 six made remands, are some that had stood over from the preceding 
 Assizes. It is evident enough what should be done here. If any of 
 the judges of the Principality have become, from the extreme pres- 
 sure of business, on the one hand, or from any physical cause, on the 
 other, inadequate to the discharge of the business which comes before 
 them, pension them off if they be barristers yet remaining in West- 
 minster Hall, and not fit to be raised to the bench, pension them off 
 too: sure I am that theirs will be the cheapest pension, nay, the most 
 beneficial to the giver, " being twice blessed," which has ever been 
 bestowed. I verily think that the Principality would itself cheerfully 
 pay this first cost of a better system. At all events, add two judges 
 to your present number, and let them take, with the other twelve, 
 their turn and share in the business of the country. Let the Princi- 
 pality of Wales be divided into two circuits, and then you will have 
 the work well done, and quickly done, especially if you transfer the 
 equity jurisdiction to the two courts of Westminster. In addition to 
 this, from the accession to the present number of judges, the existing 
 difficulties arising from the Bail Court and the chamber practice will 
 be done away.* 
 
 And here, before passing to another head of judicature, the Times 
 of the Circuits require a word or two. Not, perhaps, that this is of 
 so much importance as the other defects I have already noticed, or 
 shall presently touch upon; but it regards classes of great impor- 
 tance in themselves, judges, barristers, and solicitors; and it touches 
 also, in no little degree, the convenience of the community at large. 
 I should be most glad to see that folly for really I cannot call it by 
 any other name that absurd and vexatious folly of regulating Easter 
 term by means of the moon, done away with. It is said by many 
 
 * This evil is now remedied, the Welsh judicature being abolished.
 
 LAW KEFORM. 533 
 
 that this would be difficult to reform. I see no such difficulty in the 
 matter. Let the Law Returns be made certain, and leave the mov- 
 able feast to the church. I have no wish to interfere with the times 
 and seasons of the church; let those be regulated as you please; but 
 let this inconvenience in the Law be remedied, by making for Easter 
 and Trinity terms, like those for Michaelmas and Hilary, the returns 
 on some certain days. I remember that when the late Mr. Erskine 
 brought in a bill, in 1S02, to fix Easter term, a learned judge deli- 
 vered himself in print against the dangerous innovation; and some 
 persons, alarmed by him, exclaimed, " Only imagine the horror of 
 attempting to change Easter term, when all Christians throughout 
 the world have at present the unspeakable, comfort of knowing that 
 they are keeping this great festival upon one and the same day." 
 For my part, I have no wish to deprive them of this comfort, admit- 
 ting it, as I do, to be unspeakable. The day upon which Good Fri- 
 day falls may be determined as heretofore, that is, by the period of 
 the full moon; by the same certain varying rule may Easter Sunday 
 be fixed for all clerical purposes; but temporal business ought not to 
 be sacrificed to these ideas of some undefined spiritual consolation. 
 There is no inconvenience in Easter being movable, but there is a 
 very great inconvenience in making the law returns movable. Why 
 not, then, let the feasts of the church remain changeable as hereto- 
 fore, and the terms of the courts, little enough connected with sacred 
 things, fall at a stated period? Let it be counted, for example, from 
 Lady-day, which is always on the 25th of March. But why, indeed, 
 must we continue to count from Saints' days, now that we have hap- 
 pily a very Protestant country, more especially under the government 
 of the present Commander-in-Chief?* Why preserve any Romish 
 folly of this sort, or keep up a mere remnant of Popery? Let Easter 
 term always begin on the 10th of April, or on the 5th, and the incon- 
 venience will cease. It is the foolishest of vulgar errors to suppose, 
 that, by how much the more you harass the professors of the law, 
 by so much the more you benefit the country. The fact is quite (he 
 reverse: for by these means you make inferior men, both in rank, in 
 feelings, and in accomplishments, alone follow that profession out of 
 which the judges of the land must be appointed. I should rather 
 say, that by how much the more you surround this renowned pro- 
 fession with difficulties and impediments, calculated only to make it 
 eligible for persons of mere ordinary education, and mere habits of 
 drudgery, who otherwise would find their way to employment in 
 tradesmen's shops, or at best in merchants' counting-houses by so 
 much the more you close it upon men of talent and respectability, 
 and prevent it from being the resort of genius and of liberal accom- 
 plishment. I apprehend, therefore, that the convenience of the bar 
 is a matter which the legislature ought never to lose sight of, where 
 it clashes not with the advantage of the suitor. The having the 
 terms which are movable (Easter and Trinity), and the Circuit, and 
 
 * Duke of York. 
 45*
 
 534 LAW REFORM. 
 
 the Long Vacation, earlier by four or five weeks in one year, and 
 later by four or five weeks in another, is a most serious inconveni- 
 ence in itself, and quite unnecessary upon any principle. Only ob- 
 serve how hard the present system bears, for instance, upon those 
 who, like myself, frequent the Northern Circuit. It happened to me 
 that I did not get home till the 20th of September last year, having 
 repaired to London on the 5th of October the year before; so that I 
 was engaged in my profession for eleven months and a half, and had 
 been gratified, out of the twelve months, by exactly one fortnight's 
 vacation for needful repose. When I should have been obliged again 
 to bend my steps towards Guildhall, appointed to open on the 9th of 
 October, I naturally enough joined those who signed a requisition to 
 my Lord Tenterden, entreating him to defer the sittings. His lord- 
 ship most handsomely expressed his willingness to meet the wishes 
 of the gentlemen of the bar, kindly returning the affectionate respect 
 which all who practise in his court bear to his person. He stated 
 his satisfaction at being able to accommodate us, by sitting on Tues- 
 day the 16th, instead of Tuesday the 9th, so that we obtained a week, 
 for which we were thankful. My lord observed, that in the state of 
 his paper he could grant us no more; indeed, such is his resolution 
 manfully and honestly to despatch his business, that he seems to take 
 as much interest in his work as others do in their relaxation.* 
 
 III. I now pass to the Civil Law Courts; and their constitution I 
 touch with a tender, and, I may say, a trembling hand, knowing that, 
 from my little experience of their practice, I am scarcely competent to 
 discourse of them; for I profess to speak only from such knowledge as 
 I have obtained incidentally by practising in the two Courts of Appeal, 
 the High Court of Delegates, and the Cock-pit, where common law- 
 yers are occasionally associated with civilians. The observations 
 I have to make on this part of the subject resolve themselves, entirely, 
 into those which I would offer upon the manner in which their judges 
 are appointed and paid. In the first place, I would have them better 
 paid than they are now, a reform to which I would fain hope there 
 may be no serious objection on their part, averse, as I know them 
 generally, to all change. I think they are underpaid in respect of the 
 most important part of their functions. The Judge of the Court of 
 Admiralty, who has the highest situation, or almost the highest, among 
 the judges of the land (for there is none of them who decides upon 
 questions of greater delicacy and moment, in a national view, or in- 
 volving a larger amount of property,) this great dignitary of the law 
 has 2,500 a-year salary only. The rest of his income is composed 
 of fees, and these are little or nothing during peace. But, then, in time 
 of war they amount to seven or eight thousand per annum. I profess 
 not to like the notion of a functionary who has so many calls as the 
 Judge of the Admiralty Court, for dealing with the most delicate 
 neutral questions for drawing up manifestoes and giving opinions on 
 
 * Easter and Trinity terms have since been fixed, and sitting in October prohi- 
 bited, as here recommended.
 
 LAW REFORM. 535 
 
 those questions, and advising the Crown in matters of public policy 
 bearing on our relations with foreign states, I like not, I say, the 
 notion of such a personage being subject to the dreadful bias (and here 
 again I am speaking on general principles only, and with no personal 
 reference whatever) which he is likely to receive, from the circum- 
 stance of his having a salary of 2,500 per annum only, if a state of 
 peace continue, and between ten or eleven thousand a-year, if it be 
 succeeded by war. I know very well, sir, that no feeling of this kind 
 could possibly influence the present noble and learned judge of that 
 court;* but I hardly think it a decent thing to underpay him in time 
 of peace, and still less decent is it, to overpay him at a period when 
 the country is engaged in war. I conceive that it may not always be 
 safe to make so large an increase to a judge's salary dependent upon 
 whether the horrors of war or the blessings of peace frown or smile 
 upon his country to bestow upon one, eminently mixed up with 
 questions on which the continuance of tranquillity, or its restoration 
 when interrupted, may hinge, a revenue, conditioned upon the coming 
 on, and the endurance of hostilities.t 
 
 The other remark, which I have to offer on these courts, I would 
 strongly press upon the consideration of the House; it relates to the 
 mode in which their judges are appointed. Is it a fit thing, I ask, 
 now when Popery is no longer cherished or even respected, indeed 
 hardly tolerated, among us that one of its worst practices should re- 
 main, the appointment of some of the most eminent Judges in the Civil 
 Law Courts by prelates of the church? I except, indeed, the Judge 
 of the High Court of Admiralty, because his commission proceeds 
 from the Lord High Admiral; but I speak of all those who preside in 
 the Consistorial Courts who determine the most grave and delicate 
 questions of spiritual law, marriage and divorce, and may decide on 
 the disposition by will of all the personalty in the kingdom. Is it a 
 fit thing that the judges in these most important matters should be 
 appointed, not by the Crown, not by removable and responsible officers 
 of the Crown, but by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of 
 London, who are neither removable nor responsible, who are not 
 lawyers, who are not statesmen, who ought to be no politicians, 
 who are, indeed, priests of the highest order, but not, on that account, 
 the most proper persons to appoint judges of the highest order? So 
 it is in the province of York, where the judges are appointed by the 
 Archbishop; so in all other Consistorial Courts, where the judges are 
 appointed by the Bishops of the respective dioceses in which they are 
 situated. From their courts an appeal lies, it is true, to the Court of 
 Delegates, in the last resort; but so far from tins affording an adequate 
 remedy, it is an additional evil; for I will venture to affirm, that the 
 delegates is one of the worst constituted courts which was ever ap- 
 pointed, and that the course of its proceedings forms one of the greatest 
 
 Lord Stowcll, formerly Sir W. Scott. 
 
 f This reform is now determined upon, and has been so ever since Sir (/. Kobirt- 
 son's death in 1832, the place being merely temporarily filled up.
 
 536 LAW REFORM. 
 
 mockeries of appeal ever conceived by man. And I shall demonstrate 
 this to you in a very few words. The court is thus formed: You 
 take three judges from the Common Law Courts, one from each: to 
 these you add some half dozen civil lawyers, advocates from Doctors' 
 Commons, who the day before may have been practising in those 
 courts, but who happened not to have been in the particular cause, in 
 respect of which the appeal has been asserted. Now, only see what 
 the consequence of this must be. The civilians, forming the majority 
 of the delegates, are, of necessity, men who have no practice, or the 
 very youngest of the doctors. So that you absolutely appeal from the 
 three great judges of the Civil and Maritime Courts, from the sentences 
 of Sir William Scott, Sir John Nicholl, and Sir Christopher Robin- 
 son of those learned and experienced men, who are to us the great 
 luminaries of the civil law the venerated oracles best fitted to guide 
 our path through all the difficulties of that branch of the science, and 
 open to us its dark passages you appeal from them to judges, the 
 majority of whom must, of necessity, be the advocates the least em- 
 ployed in the courts where those great authorities preside, the most 
 recently admitted to those courts, and the most unqualified to pro- 
 nounce soundly on their proceedings, if it were decent that they should 
 pronounce at all; for, out of so small a bar, the chances are, (hat the 
 three or four eminent advocates have been employed in the case under 
 appeal. Thus the absurdity is really much the same as if you were 
 to appeal from a solemn and elaborate judgment, pronounced by my 
 Lord Tenterden, Mr. Justice Bayley, Mr. Justice Holroyd, and Mr. 
 Justice Littledale, to the judgment of three young barristers, called but 
 the day before, and three older ones, who never could obtain any 
 practice.* 
 
 Sir, I have spoken of the Primate and his principal suffragan, and 
 I hope I need not protest, especially while I have the pleasure of ad- 
 dressing you, that in what I have said of the privilege belonging to 
 the highest dignitary in the church, my observations were meant to 
 be most remote indeed from everything like personal disrespect. To- 
 wards no persons in their exalted station do I bear a more profound 
 respect than to both the distinguished prelates I have named, well 
 knowing the liberality of their conduct in exercising the powers I am 
 objecting to, as all the country knows the extent of learning and in- 
 tegrity of character which have made them the ornaments of our 
 hierarchy.! 
 
 IV. I next come to speak of the Privy Council a very important 
 judicature, and of which the members discharge as momentous duties 
 as any of the judges of this country, having to determine not only 
 upon questions of colonial law in plantation cases, but to sit also as 
 judges, in the last resort, of all prize causes. The point, however, to 
 which I more immediately address myself on this head is, that they 
 
 * The Court of Delegates has since been abolished, and its judicature transfer- 
 red to the new Court of Privy Council. 
 
 j- Measures were taken in 1832 to abolish this absurd kind of Episcopal pa- 
 tronage.
 
 LAW REFORM. 537 
 
 hear and decide upon all our plantation appeals. They are thus made 
 the supreme judges in the last resort, over every one of your foreign 
 settlements, whether situated in those immense territories which you 
 possess in the East, where you and a trading company together rule 
 over not less than seventy millions of subjects or established among 
 those rich and populous islands which stud the Indian ocean, and form 
 the great eastern Archipelago or have their stations in those lands, 
 part lying within the tropics, part stretching towards the pole, peopled 
 by various castes differing widely in habits, still more widely in privi- 
 leges, great in numbers, abounding in wealth, extremely unsettled in 
 their notions of right, and excessively litigious, as all the children of 
 the new world are supposed to be, both from their physical and poli- 
 tical constitution. All this immense jurisdiction over the rights of 
 property and person, over rights political and legal, and over all the 
 quesiious growing out of such a vast and varied province, is exercised 
 by the Privy Council unaided and alone. It is obvious that, from the 
 mere distance of those colonies, and the immense variety of matters 
 arising in them, foreign to our habits and beyond the scope of our 
 knowledge, any judicial tribunal in this country must of necessity be 
 an extremely inadequate court of review. But what adds incredibly 
 to the difficulty is, that hardly any two of the colonies can be named 
 which have the same law; and in the greater number, the law is 
 wholly unlike our own. In some settlements, it is the Dutch law, in 
 others the Spanish, in others the French, in others the Danish. In 
 our eastern possessions these variations are, if possible, yet greater; 
 while one territory is swayed by the Mahommedan law, another is 
 ruled by the native, or Hindoo law; and this again, in some of our 
 possessions, is qualified or superseded by the law of Buddah, the 
 English jurisprudence being confined to the handful of British settlers, 
 and the inhabitants of the three presidencies. All those laws must 
 come in their turns in review, before the necessarily ignorant Privy 
 Councillor, after the learned doctors in each have differed. The diffi- 
 culty thus arising of necessity from our distance, an unavoidable inci- 
 dent to our colonial empire, may almost be deemed an incnpncity, for 
 it involves both ignorance of the law and unfit noss to judge of the 
 facts. But so much the more anxious should we be to remove every 
 unnecessary obstacle to right judgment, and to use all the correctives 
 in our power. The judges should be men of the largest legal and 
 general information, accustomed to study other systems of law beside 
 the.ir own, and associated with lawyers who have practised or pre- 
 sided in the Colonial courts. They should be assisted by a bar limit- 
 ing its practice, for the most part, to this Appeal Court; at any rate, 
 unking it their principal object. To counteract, in some degree, the 
 delays necessarily arising from the distance of the courts below, and 
 give ample time for patient inquiry into so dark and difficult matters, 
 the Court of Review should sit frequently and regularly at all seasons. 
 Because all these precautions would still leave much to wish for, that 
 is no kind of reason why you should not anxiously adopt them. On 
 the contrary, it is your bounden duty, among those countless millions
 
 538 LAW REFORM. 
 
 whom you desire to govern all over the globe, not to suffer a single 
 unnecessary addition to the inevitable impediments which the remote 
 position of the seat of empire throws in the way of correct and speedy 
 justice. 
 
 Widely different are our arrangements. The Privy Council, which 
 ought to be held more regularly than any other court, sits far less con- 
 stantly than any, having neither a regular bench nor a regular bar. 
 It only meets on certain extraordinary days the 30th of January, the 
 Feast of the Purification, some day in May, Midsummer-day, and a 
 few others. I find that, on an average of twelve years, ending 1826, 
 it sat in each year nine days, to dispose of all the appeals from all the 
 British subjects in India; from our own civil courts, to the jurisdiction 
 of which all our subjects are locally amenable, throughout the wide 
 extent of the several presidencies of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras; 
 to dispose of all the causes which come up to the three several native 
 courts of last resort, the Sudder Adawluts, from the inferior courts of 
 Zilla and Circuit, comprising all contested suits between the Hindoos, 
 the half-caste people, and Mahommedan inhabitants. But in the 
 same nine days are to be disposed of all the appeals from Ceylon, the 
 Mauritius, the Cape, and New Holland; from our colonies in the 
 West Indies and in North America; from our settlements in the 
 Mediterranean, and from the islands in the Channel; nine days' sit- 
 tings are deemed sufficient for the decision of the whole. But nine 
 days do not suffice, nor anything like it, for this purpose; and the 
 summary I have in my hand demonstrates it, both by what it contains 
 and by what it does not. It appears that, in all those twelve years 
 taken together, the appeals have amounted to but few in number. I 
 marvel that they are so few and yet I marvel not, for, in point of 
 fact, you have no adequate tribunal to dispose of them; and the want 
 of such a tribunal is an absolute denial of justice to the, subjects of the 
 crown in those colonies. The total number is only 467; but including 
 about 50 which came from India, and appear not to have been regu- 
 larly entered, though they are still undisposed of, there are 517. Of 
 these, 243 only have been disposed of, but only 129 have been heard; 
 for the others were either compromised, from hopelessness, owing to 
 the delay which had intervened between the appeal and the sentence, 
 or dismissed for want of prosecution. Consequently, the Privy Coun- 
 cil must have heard ten or eleven appeals only by the year, or little 
 more than one in the course of each day's sitting. Again, of the 129 
 which were heard and disposed of, no less than 56 were decided 
 against the original sentences, which were altered, and generally 
 speaking, were wholly reversed. Now, 56 out of 129 is a very large 
 proportion, little less than one-half, and clearly shows that the limited 
 number of appeals must have arisen, not from the want of cases where 
 revision was required, but from the apprehension of finding no ade- 
 quate court of review, or no convenient despatch of business. And 
 that the sentences in the colonies should oftentimes be found ill- 
 digested, or hasty, or ignorant, can be no matter of astonishment, 
 when we find a bold Lieutenant-General Lord Chancellor in one
 
 LAW REFORM. 539 
 
 court, and an enterprising Captain President in another, and a worthy 
 Major officiating as judge-advocate in a third. In many of these 
 cases, a gallant and unlearned Lord Chancellor has decided, in the 
 court below, points of the greatest legal nicety, and ihe judges of ap- 
 peal, who are to set him right here, are chosen without much more 
 regard to legal aptitude; for you are not to suppose that the business 
 of these nine days upon which they sit is all transacted before law- 
 yers; one lawyer there may be, but the rest are laymen. Certainly a 
 right honourable gentleman* whom I see opposite to me is there 
 sometimes by chance, and his presence is sure to be attended with 
 great advantage to us. Occasionally, we see him or my learned friend, 
 his predecessor,! but this good fortune is rare; the Master of the Kolls 
 alone is always to be seen there, of the lawyers; for the rest, one 
 meets sometimes in company with him, an elderly and most respecta- 
 ble gentleman, who has formerly been an ambassador, and was a 
 governor with much credit to himself in difficult times; and now and 
 then a junior lord of the admiralty, who has been neither ambassador 
 nor lawyer, but would be exceedingly fit for both functions, only that 
 he happened to be educated for neither. And such, sir, is the consti- 
 tution of that awful Privy Council which sits at Westminster, making 
 up, for its distance from the suitors, by the regularity of its sittings, 
 and for its ignorance of local laws and usages, by the extent and 
 variety of its general law learning; this is the court which determines, 
 without appeal, and in a manner the most summary that can be con- 
 ceived in this country, all those most important matters which come 
 before it. For instance, I once saw property worth thirty thousand 
 pounds sterling per annum, disposed of in a few minutes after the ar- 
 guments at the bar ended, by the learned members of the Privy Coun- 
 cil, who reversed a sentence pronounced by all the judges in the set- 
 tlement, upon no less than nineteen days' most anxious discussion. 
 Such a court, whose decisions are without appeal irreversible, unless 
 by act of Parliament is the supreme tribunal which dispenses the 
 law to eighty millions of people, and disposes of all their property. 
 
 1 cannot pass from this subject without relating a fact which illus- 
 trates the consequences of the delays necessarily incident to such a 
 jurisdiction. The Rariee, or Queen of Ramnad, having died, a ques- 
 tion arose among the members of her family respecting the succession 
 to the vacant Musnud (or throne), and to the personal property of the 
 deceased sovereign, as well as the territorial revenue. The situation 
 of the country, as well as its population and wealth, render it a pro- 
 vince of some note. It reckons four hundred thousand inhabitants, 
 and it lies in the direct road which the pilgrims from the south of 
 India take to the sanctuary in the island of Rcmisseram, frequented 
 by them as much as the Juggernaut is by those of the north. On 
 the death of Her Highness in 1809, proceedings commenced in the 
 courts below upon the disputed succession. An appeal to the King 
 
 * Sir John Beckclt, Judge-Advocate. 
 
 | Mr. Abercromby (now speaker of llie House of Commons).
 
 540 LAW REFORM. 
 
 in Council was lodged in 1814; it is still pending. And what has 
 been the consequence of this delay of justice? Why, that the king- 
 dom of Ramnad has been all this time in the keeping of sheriffs' 
 officers, excepting the Honourable Company's peshcush, or share of 
 the revenues, which, I have no manner of doubt, has been faithfully 
 exacted to the last rupee. It is strictly in what amounts to the same 
 thing as the custody of sheriffs' officers, having been taken, as I may 
 say, in execution, or rather by a kind of mesne process, such as we 
 have not in our law. 
 
 As the papers on the table, to which I have referred, show so much 
 fewer appeals from the Plantations than might have been expected, 
 it is fit now to remind the House how equivocal a symptom this is of 
 full justice being done. It is the worst of all follies, the most iniqui- 
 tous, as well as the most mistaken kind of policy, to stop litigation, 
 not by affording a cheap and expeditious remedy, but by an absolute 
 denial of justice, in the difficulties which distance, ignorance, expense, 
 and delay produce. The distance you cannot remove, if you would; 
 the ignorance it is hardly more easy to get rid of: then, for God's sake, 
 why not give to these your foreign subjects, what you have it in yonr 
 power to bestow a speedy and cheap administration of justice? 
 This improvement in the Court of Appeal would create more busi- 
 ness, indeed, but justice would no longer be taxed and delayed, and, 
 in the cost and the delay, be denied. But if you would safely, and 
 without working injustice, stop appeals from the colonies, carry your 
 reforms thither also: I should say, for instance, that a reform of the 
 judicatures of India would be matter most highly deserving the con- 
 sideration of his Majesty's government. I am at a loss to know, 
 why there should be so rigorous an exclusion of jury trials from the 
 native courts of India. I know, and every one must know, who has 
 taken the trouble to inquire, that the natives are eminently capable 
 of applying their minds to the evisceration of truth in judicial inqui- 
 ries; that they possess powers of discrimination, ready ingenuity, and 
 sagacity in a very high degree; and that, where they have been ad- 
 mitted so to exercise those powers, they have been found most useful 
 and intelligent assistants in aiding the investigations of the judge. 
 But I know, also, that your present mode of administering justice to 
 these native subjects is such as I can hardly speak of without shame. 
 Look at your local judges at their fitness for judicial functions. A 
 young writer goes out to India; he is appointed a judge, and he re- 
 pairs to his station, to make money, by distributing justice, if he can, 
 but, at all events, to make money. In total ignorance of the manners, 
 the customs, the prejudices, possibly of the language, of those upon 
 whose affairs and conduct he is to sit in judgment, and by whose testi- 
 mony he is to pursue his inquiries, and very possibly equally unin- 
 formed of the laws he is to administer he must needs be wholly 
 dependent upon his Pundit, for direction both as to matter of fact and 
 matter of law, and, most probably, becomes a blind passive tool in 
 the hands of a designing minister. 
 
 The house will not suppose that I mean to insinuate for a moment
 
 LAW REFORM. 541 
 
 the possibility of suspicion as lo the wilful misconduct of the judge in 
 this difficult position. I am very sure that the party who may hap- 
 pen to occupy that high office would rather cut off his right hand, if 
 the alternative were offered him, than take the bribe of a paria to 
 misdecide a cause that came before him. But I am by no means so 
 secure of the pundit upon whom the judge must be necessarily de- 
 pendent; and while he is both less trustworthy and wholly irrespon- 
 sible, the purity of the responsible, but passive instrument in his hands 
 is a thing of perfect insignificance. The experiment of trial by jury, 
 by which this serious evil may, in part, be remedied, has been already 
 tried. The efforts made by a learned judge of Ceylon, Sir Alexander 
 Johnson, to introduce into that colony the British system of justice, 
 manfully supported by the government at home, have been attended 
 with signal success. I am acquainted with a particular case, indeed, 
 the details of which are too long to lay before the House, but which 
 showed the fitness of the natives to form part of a tribunal, notwith- 
 standing the prevalence of strong prejudices in a particular instance 
 among them, where the failure of the experiment might, therefore, 
 have been apprehended. A Brahmin was put on his trial for mur- 
 der, and a great feeling excited against him, possibly against his caste. 
 Twelve of the jury were led away by this feeling, and by the very 
 strong case which a subtle conspiracy had contrived against the pri- 
 soner, when a young Brahmin, the thirteenth juror, examined the 
 evidence with a dexterity and judgment that excited the greatest ad- 
 miration, and from his knowledge of the habits and manners of the 
 witnesses, together with extraordinary natural sagacity, succeeded in 
 exposing the plot and saving the innocent man. Oilier considerations 
 there are, less immediately connected with the administration of jus- 
 tice, and which I might press upon the House, to evince the expe- 
 diency of introducing our system of trial in the East. Nothing could 
 be better calculated to conciliate the minds of the natives than allow- 
 ing them to form part of the tribunals to which they are subject, and 
 share in administering the laws under which they live. It would 
 give them an understanding of the course of public justice, and of the 
 law by which they are ruled; a fellow feeling with the government 
 which executes it; and an interest in supporting the system in whose 
 powers they participate. The effect of such a proceeding would lie, 
 that in India, as in Ceylon, in the event of a rebellion, the great mass 
 of the people, instead of joining the revolters, would give all their sup- 
 port to the government. This valuable, but not costly fruit of the 
 wise policy pursued in that Island, has already been gathered. In 
 1S10, the same people which, twelve years before, had risen against 
 your dynasty, were found marshalled on your side, and helping you 
 to crush rebellion. So will it be in the Peninsula, if you give your 
 subjects a share in administering your laws, and an interest and a 
 pride in supporting you. Should the day ever come when dis .ll'rriioii 
 may appeal to se'a-nly millions, against a few thousand siranu'crs, 
 who have planted themselves upon the ruins of their ancient dynaMu-s, 
 VOL. i. l(j
 
 542 LAW REFORM. 
 
 you will find how much safer it is to have won their hearts, and uni- 
 versally cemented their attachment by a common interest in your sys- 
 tem, than to rely upon a hundred and fifty Seapoy swords, of excel- 
 lent temper, but in doubtful hands.* 
 
 V. I now, sir, come to the administration of law in the country, 
 by justices of peace; and I approach this jurisdiction with fear and 
 trembling, when I reflect on what Mr. Windham was accustomed to 
 say, that he dreaded to talk of the game laws in a House composed 
 of sportsmen; and so too, I dread to talk of the quorum in an assem- 
 bly of magistrates. Surrounded as I am both among my honourable 
 friends, and among members on the other side, by gentlemen in the 
 commission, I own that this is a ground on which I have some reluc- 
 tance to tread. But 1 have to deal with the principle only, not with 
 the individuals: my reflections are general, not personal. Neverthe- 
 less, considering the changes which have been effected in modern 
 times, I cannot help thinking it worth inquiry, whether some amend- 
 ment might not be made in our Justice-of-peace system. The first 
 doubt which strikes me is, if it be fit that they should be appointed as 
 they are, merely by the Lords Lieutenant of counties, without the 
 interference of the Crown's responsible ministers. It is true that the 
 Lord Chancellor issues the commission, but it is the Lord Lieutenant 
 who designates the persons to be comprehended in it. Such a thing 
 is hardly ever known as any interference with respect to those indi- 
 viduals on the part of the Lord Chancellor. He looks to the Lord 
 Lieutenant, or rather to the " Custos Kotulorum," which the Lord 
 Lieutenant most frequently is (indeed everywhere but in counties 
 Palatine), for the names of proper persons. The Lord Lieutenant, 
 therefore, as Custos Rolulorum, absolutely appoints all the justices of 
 the peace in his county, at his sole will and pleasure. Now I cannot 
 understand what quality is peculiar to a keeper of the records, that 
 fits him, above all other men, to say who shall be the judges of the 
 district whose records he keeps. I think it would be about as conve- 
 nient and natural to let the Master of the Rolls appoint the judges of 
 the land (indeed, more so, for he is a lawyer), or to give the appoint- 
 ment to the keeper of the state papers. The Custos Rotulorum may- 
 issue a new commission, too, and leave out names; I have known it 
 done; but I have also known it prevented by the Great Seal; indeed, 
 it was laid down as a rule by the late Lord Chancellor Eldon, from 
 which no consideration, his lordship was used to say, should induce 
 him to depart, that however unfit a magistrate might be for his office, 
 either from private misconduct or party feeling, he would never strike 
 him oft the list until he had been convicted of some offence by the 
 verdict of a court of record. Upon this principle he always acted. 
 No doubt his lordship felt, that as the magistrates gave their services 
 gratis, they ought to be protected; but still it is a rule which opens 
 
 * All these evils have now been remedied by the Judicial Committee Act, con- 
 stituting a regular court of four professional judges in the Privy Council, and pro- 
 viding for the hearing of the East India causes.
 
 LAW REFORM. 5-43 
 
 the door to very serious mischief and injustice, and I myself could, if 
 necessary, quote cases in which it has been most unfortunately perse- 
 vered in. On looking, however, at the description of persons who 
 are put into the commission, I am not at all satisfied that the choice is 
 made with competent discretion; and upon this part of the question I 
 may as well declare at once, that I have very great doubts as to the 
 expediency of making clergymen magistrates. This is a course which, 
 whenever it can be done conveniently, I should certainly be glad to 
 see changed, unless in counties where there are very few resident lay 
 proprietors. My opinion is, that a clerical magistrate, in uniting two 
 very excellent and useful characters, pretty generally spoils both; that 
 the combination produces what the alchymists called a tertium quid, 
 with very little, indeed, of the good qualities of either ingredient, and 
 no little of the bad ones of both, together with new evils superinduced 
 by their commixture. There is the activity of the magistrate in an 
 excessive degree; over-activity is a very high magisterial offence, in 
 my view; yet most of the magistrates distinguished for over-activity 
 are clergymen: joined to this are found the local hatings and likings, 
 and, generally, somewhat narrow-minded opinions and prejudices, 
 which are apt to attach to the character of the resident parish priest, 
 one of the most valuable and respectable, if kept pure from political 
 contamination. There are some Lords Lieutenant, I know, who 
 make it a rule never to appoint a clergyman to the magistracy; and I 
 entirely agree in the policy of that course, because the education and 
 the habits of such gentlemen are seldom of a worldly description, and 
 therefore by no means qualify them to discharge the duties of such an 
 office; but, generally speaking, as the House must be aware, through 
 the country the practice is far otherwise. Again, some Lords Lieu- 
 tenant appoint men for their political opinions; some for activity as 
 partisans in local contests; some are so far influenced as to keep out 
 all who take a decided part against themselves in matters where all 
 men should be free to act as their opinions dictate; and in the exercise 
 of this patronage no responsibility whatever substantially exists. Ap- 
 pointed, then, by irresponsible advisers, and irremovable without a 
 conviction, let us now see what is the authority of men so chosen and 
 so secure.* 
 
 In the first place, they have the privilege of granting or withholding 
 licenses. As we all know, it lies in the breast of two Justices of the 
 Peace to give or to refuse this important privilege. It is in their absolute 
 power to give a license to one of the most unfit persons possible; and 
 it is in their power to refuse a license to one of the most fit persons 
 possible. They may continue a license to some person who has had it 
 but a twelvemonth, and who, during that twelvemonth, has made his 
 house a nuisance to the whole neighbouihood; or they may take away 
 
 * The course uince 1828, and especially since, 1832, has been for the Great Seal 
 to exercise a much more active interference in appointing magistrates; and the 
 Lord Lieutenant (or rather ('iMloa Kotulornm) no longer is the, person alone con- 
 sulted. This is now the case with Durham also, where the Bishop is no longer 
 Custos, that office being now held by the Lord Lieutenant.
 
 544 LAW REFORM. 
 
 a license from a house to which it has been attached for a century, and 
 the enjoyment of which has not only been attended by no evil, but has 
 been productive of great public benefit. And all this, be it observed, 
 they do without even the shadow of control. There is no rule 
 more certain than that a mandamus does not lie to compel justices 
 either to grant or withhold a license. I hardly ever remember mov- 
 ing for one; and I only once recollect a rule being granted it was 
 on the motion of my honourable and learned friend, the Solicitor- 
 General. But I know that great astonishment was expressed on the 
 occasion; that every one asked what he could have stated to make 
 the court listen to the application; that all took for granted it would 
 be discharged, as a matter of course; which it accordingly was, in 
 less time than I have taken to relate the circumstance. What other 
 control is there over the conduct of the licensing magistrate? I 
 shall be told that he may be proceeded against, either by a criminal 
 information, or by impeachment. As to the latter, no man of com- 
 mon sense would dream of impeaching a magistrate, any more than 
 he would think now-a-days of impeaching a minister. Then, as to 
 proceeding by criminal information: In the first place, it is ne- 
 cessary, in order even to obtain the rule, to produce affidavits, that 
 the magistrate has been influenced by wilful and corrupt motives: 
 not merely affidavits of belief in those who swear, but of facts prov- 
 ing him guilty of malversation in his office. Then, suppose, as not 
 unfrequently happens, a rule obtained on this ex parte statement; 
 the magistrate answers the charges an oath; he swears last, and may 
 touch many points never anticipated by the other party, consequently 
 not answered; and unless the alleged facts remain, upon the discus- 
 sion, undeniable, and the guilt to be inferred from them seems as 
 clear as the light of day, the rule is discharged with costs. The dif- 
 ficulty of proving corruption is rendered almost insuperable, because 
 all the magistrate has to do, in order to defend himself from the con- 
 sequences of granting or withholding a license, is to adopt the short 
 course of saying nothing at the time of keeping his own counsel 
 of abstaining from any statement of his reasons. Let him only give 
 no reason for his conduct, and no power on earth can touch him. 
 He may grant a license to a common brothel, or he may refuse a 
 license to one of the most respectable inns on the North road; let him 
 withhold his reasons, and his conduct remains unquestionable; al- 
 though the real motive by which he is actuated may be, that he is in 
 the habit of using the one house, and that the landlord of the other 
 will not suffer him to use it in the same way. Unless you can show 
 that he has himself stated his motives, or that there are circumstances 
 so strong against him as amount to conviction, you are prevented 
 from even instituting an inquiry on the subject. Thus absolute is the 
 authority of the magistrate with regard to licensing. With the permis- 
 sion of the House, in order to illustrate the abuse of this extensive 
 power, I will read a letter which I received some time ago on the 
 subject of the licensing system, from one of the most worthy and 
 learned individuals in this country a man of large fortune, and of
 
 LAW REFORM. 545 
 
 most pure and estimable character, who long acted as a magistrate 
 in one of the neighbouring counties. 
 
 [Mr. 13. here read a letter, in which the tendency of justices is stated 
 to favour particular houses, and not take away their licenses, though 
 guilty of the grossest irregularities, on the pretence, become a maxim 
 with many of them, that "the house being brick and mortar cannot 
 offend," whereas a haunt of bad company being established, it becomes 
 the magistrate's duty to break it up. It was also shown how the 
 power of licensing placed millions of property at the disposal of the 
 justices, a license easily adding 500 to the value of a lease, and often 
 much more, and the number of victuallers exceeding 40,000. It further 
 showed the partiality of the bench towards brewers and their houses-, 
 especially in Middlesex and the home counties.] 
 
 I have received a variety of other information upon this subject, all 
 leading to the same result. That which I have described, the leaning 
 of justices towards brewers, whom, in licensing, they favour, as brother 
 magistrates, although the latter are not allowed by law to preside at 
 a Brewster Sessions, is, perhaps, the most crying evil connected with 
 the system; but who does not know (I am sure I do, in more parts of 
 the kingdom than one or two) that licenses are granted, and refused, 
 from election motives! When, some time ago, I brought the Beer 
 Bill into this House, I had, of course, an extensive correspondence on, 
 the subject; and I was assured by many highly respectable persons, 
 that the evil of this system is by no means confined to the neighbour- 
 hood of London, of which they gave me numerous instances.* 
 
 Nor is the licensing power of the magistracy that in which alone 
 great abuses exist. They prevail wheresoever their authority is ex- 
 ercised; in the commitments for offences against the Game Laws; in 
 dealing with petty offences against property; in taking cognizance of 
 little assaults, especially on oflicers; in summary convictions for non- 
 payment of tithes, and a number of other matters affecting the liberties 
 and property of the subject; and, yet, for their conduct in all of these 
 matters they are not amenable to any superior power, provided, as I 
 have said before, they only keep their own counsel, and abstain from 
 stating the reasons by which they have been actuated, should their 
 motives be evil. There is not a worse constituted tribunal on the face 
 of the earth, not even that of the Turkish Cadi, than that at which 
 summary convictions on the Game Laws constantly take place; I mean 
 a bench or a brace of sporting justices. I am far from saying that, on 
 such subjects, they are actuated by corrupt motives; but they are un- 
 doubtedly instigated by their abhorrence of that caput lupimirn, that 
 host is hnrnani generis, as an honourable friend of mine once called 
 him in his place, thai ./era nuturx a poacher.t From their decisions 
 on those points, where their passions are the most likely to mislead 
 
 * The alteration of the Law on Beer Licenses has deprived the Justices of this 
 power. 
 
 | The alteration of the Law as to the sale of Game has since greatly remedied 
 these evils. 
 
 4G
 
 546 LAW REFORM. 
 
 them, no appeal in reality lies to a more calm and unprejudiced tribu- 
 nal; for, unless they set out any matter illegal on the face of the con- 
 viction, you remove the record in vain. Equally supreme are they in 
 cases where, sitting in a body at Quarter Sessions, they decide upon 
 the most important rights of liberty and property. Let it be remem- 
 bered that they can sentence to almost unlimited imprisonment, to 
 whipping, to fine, nay, to transportation for seven and fourteen years. 
 I have shuddered to see the way in which these extensive powers are 
 sometimes exercised by a jurisdiction not responsible for its acts. It is 
 said that the magistracy ought not to be responsible, because it is not 
 paid; but we ought not to forget, that as gold itself may be bought too 
 dear, so may economy; money may be saved at too high a price. 
 Mark the difference of responsibility between the Quarter Sessions and 
 one of the superior courts of the kingdom. In the King's Bench, the 
 name of the judge who pronounces the judgment is known, and the 
 venerable magistrate stands before the country in his own proper per- 
 son, always placed at the bar of public opinion. Here it is Lord Ten- 
 terden it is Mr. Justice Bailey, by their names: in the other case, it 
 is merely the Quarter Sessions, which, as Dean Swift says, is nobody's 
 name. The individual magistrates composing it are not thought of; 
 their names are not even published. It is a fluctuating body. If the 
 same individuals always sat in the court, there might be some approach 
 to responsibility. At present there is none; and where there is no 
 responsibility, injustice will occasionally be committed, as long as men 
 are men. It would be some correction of the evil, if the number of 
 magistrates was fixed; if their names were always known in con- 
 nection with their acts; and if they were more easily removable on 
 proof of their misconduct. Then comes the question Is it, after all, 
 gratuitous service? We are told that we cannot visit the magistrates 
 severely, or even watch them very strictly, because they volunteer 
 their duty,and receive no remuneration for their trouble. But although 
 they have no money for it, they may have money's worth. Cheap 
 justice, sir, is a very good thing; but costly justice is much better than 
 cheap injustice. If I saw clearly the means by which the magistrates 
 could be paid, and by which, therefore, a more correct discharge of 
 the magisterial duties might be insured, I would certainly prefer paying 
 them in money to allowing them to receive money's worth by jobs, 
 and other violations of their duty. Not only may the magistrate him- 
 self receive compensation in money's worth; he may receive it in hard 
 money by his servants. The fees of a justice's clerk amount to a little 
 income, often to many times a man's wages. I have heard of a reverend 
 justice in the country, having a clerk whose emoluments he wished to 
 increase, and therefore he had him appointed surveyor of weights and 
 measures, with a salary of a guinea and a half a week. This person 
 appointed a deputy, to whom he gave five shillings and sixpence, and 
 who did all the duty. These circumstances came under the considera- 
 tion of his brother justices; when, after a strenuous opposition, and 
 among others, on the part of the gentleman who communicates the 
 occurrence in a letter now lying before me, it was decided, not only
 
 LAW REFORM. 547 
 
 not to remove the first appointed person, who it was proved was doing 
 nothing, but to swear in the other as his assistant! My friend is not 
 entirely without suspicion that this functionary, having so small a re- 
 muneration as five shillings and sixpence a week, can only have under- 
 taken the duty with a view of increasing it by some understanding 
 with the people whose weights and measures it is his duty to super- 
 intend. 
 
 The operation of pecuniary motives in matters connected with the 
 magistracy, is more extensive than may at first sight appear. There 
 was a bill introduced by the right honourable gentleman opposite,* 
 for extending the payment of expenses of witnesses and prosecutors 
 out of the county rates. It is not to be doubted that it has greatly 
 increased the number of commitments, and has been the cause of 
 many persons being brought to trial, who ought to have been dis- 
 charged by the magistrates. The habit of committing, from this 
 and other causes^ has grievously increased everywhere of late, and 
 especially of boys. Eighteen hundred and odd, many of them mere 
 children, have been committed in the Warwick district, during the 
 last seven years. Nor is this a trifling evil. People do not come out 
 of gaol as they went in. A boy may enter the prison gate merely as 
 the robber of an orchard; he may come out of it "fit for"- 1 will 
 not say "treasons" but certainly "stratagems and spoils."! Many 
 are the inducements independent of any legislative encouragement, 
 to these commitments. The justice thinks he gains credit by them. 
 He has the glory of being commemorated at the Assizes before the 
 lord judge, and the sheriff, and the grand jury, and all who can read 
 the Crown calendar. On that solemn occasion, he has the gratifica- 
 tion of hearing it fly from mouth to mouth "He is a monstrous 
 good magistrate; no man commits so many persons." Then there 
 is the lesser glory acquired among neighbours, into whose pockets 
 they are the means of putting money, by making them prosecutors 
 and \vitnesses in petty criminal cases; and thus converting (as Sir 
 Eardley Wilinot says) their journey of duty into a jaunt of pleasure 
 to the Assizes. The reputation of activity is very seducing to a 
 magistrate; but I have known it curiously combined with things more 
 solid than empty praise. In a certain town which I am well ac- 
 quainted with, one suburb was peopled by Irishmen and Scots, who 
 were wont to fight on every market-day a good deal, at fair tides a 
 good doal more, but without any serious affray taking place. IJeside 
 these two classes of the King's subjects, there also dwelt in those 
 parts two justices of the King, assigned to keep the peace; for the 
 better conserving of which, they repaired at the hour of fight to an 
 ale-house conveniently situated, hard by the scone of action, and 
 there took their seat with a punch-bowl full of warrants, ready to 
 fill up. If the Irish happened to be victorious, the Scots came one 
 after another and applied for commitments against those who had 
 
 * Sir Robert Perl. 
 
 f There is still wanting much reform of the criminal law on this material subject.
 
 548 LAW REFORM. 
 
 assaulted them. The despatch with which warrants, at least if not 
 justice, were administered, was notable. Then came the other party, 
 and swore to as many assaults upon them; and, justice being even- 
 handed, they too had their desire gratified, until the bowl was by 
 degrees emptied of its paper investment, and a metallic currency, by 
 like degrees, took its place. 
 
 Some of these details may be ludicrous; but the general subject is 
 a most serious and a most important one, because these facts show the 
 manner in which justice is administered to the people out of sight of 
 the public, and out of reach of the higher courts of law. It is through 
 the magistracy, more than through any other agency except, indeed, 
 that of the tax-gatherer that the people are brought directly into 
 contact with the government of the country; and this is the measure 
 of justice with which, when they approach it, they are treated by 
 functionaries irresponsible for their proceedings. A justice of the 
 peace, whether in his own parlour or on the bench whether em- 
 ployed in summary convictions, or in enforcing what is called, after a 
 very worthy friend of mine, Mr. Nicholson Calvert's Act (one of the 
 worst in the statute-book, which I hope to see repealed,* and which 
 I trust its excellent author will very long survive) is never an osten- 
 sible individual, responsible in his own proper person to public 
 opinion; hardly ever, unless he chooses by some indiscretion to make 
 himself so, amenable to a higher and purer judicature. The judges of 
 the land, chosen from the professors of the law, after the labours of a 
 life previously devoted to the acquirement of knowledge calculated to 
 fit them for their office, and clothed with attributes of supreme power 
 over petty magistrates, are responsible for every word and act, and are 
 subject to every species of revision and control. They were selected 
 wiih the most anxious caution for every qualification of high character 
 and of profound knowledge; and yet they are incapable of pro- 
 nouncing a single decision from which an appeal will not lie to some 
 other tribunal immediately above them: while, from the decision of 
 the country justices taken from the community at hazard, or recom- 
 mended by the habits least calculated to make themjust subject to 
 no personal responsibility, because beyond or below the superintend- 
 ence of public opinion and irremovable, unless by a verdict for 
 some indictable offence from their decision there is no appeal; from 
 their decision, although they have to deal with some of the most im- 
 portant interests in the country, there is no appeal, unless their mis- 
 deeds shall have been set forth in a case, submitted by their own free 
 will, with their expression, to the Court of King's Bench. 
 
 These are the principal points to which, in the first division of my 
 subject, I desire to call the attention of the House, as deserving your 
 deliberate consideration, and as the materials of solemn inquiry. I 
 could have wished to accomplish my object more briefly, but I found 
 it impossible, consistently with distinctness. I am not aware that I 
 have made an unnecessary comment; and I must trust to the candour 
 
 * This act still exists, and continues liable to the same objections.
 
 LAW REFORM. 549 
 
 of honourable members in weighing the importance of these state- 
 ments, to pardon the apparent prolixity unavoidably incident to the 
 handling of a very extensive and varied argument. 
 
 II. 1 wish I could give the Mouse any promise, that my speech was 
 approaching its termination; but that hope can hardly be entertained, 
 when I state that I am now about to enter on the still more vast and 
 momentous consideration of the law as administered in those tribu- 
 nals, whose construction we have been surveying the distribution 
 of justice in those courts in which it has been my fortune to practise 
 during a pretty long professional life. 
 
 There is a consideration of a general nature, to which I would first 
 of all advert; I mean the inconvenient differences in the tenures by 
 which property is held, and the rules by which it is conveyed and 
 transmitted, in various districts of the country. Is it fitting or con- 
 sistent with reason, or indeed with justice, that merely crossing the 
 river, or travelling a distance of some miles in this neighbourhood, 
 should make so great an alteration in the law of real property, as 
 that, to the eastward of us, all the sons inherit equally; to the west- 
 ward, the youngest alone; and here, the eldest? But these rules of 
 the Common Law, of Gavelkind, and of Borough English, are better 
 known, and operate within more defined limits. What shall be said 
 of the customary tenures, in a thousand manors, all different from the 
 Common Law that regulates freehold estates, most of them differing 
 from each other?* Is it, I ask, fit that this multitude of laws, this 
 variety of codes, the relics of a barbarous age, should be allowed to 
 exist in a country subject to the same general bonds of government? 
 I should trespass at greater length than I am willing to do, were I to 
 detail the various customs which exist in the manors of this country; 
 but to give the house an idea of their diversity, I must mention a few. 
 In one manor, the copyhold property is not allowed to pass by will; 
 in another, it may be so conveyed. I admit that a great improve- 
 ment has been made in this respect, by the act of an honourable friend 
 of mine (Mr. M. A. Taylor), to whom we owe several other impor- 
 tant legislative measures, allowing it to be devised by will without 
 surrender. This is the only material improvement which lias been 
 made, with respect to such property, within the last hundred years; 
 but it only operates in facilitating the transmission, according to the 
 custom of the manor of passing the copyhold by will. In one ma- 
 nor, a devise is not valid, if made longer than two years before the 
 testator's decease; so that it is necessary for wills to be renewed 
 every two years; in another, one year; in a third, three years are the 
 period; while in many there are no such restrictions.! In some ma- 
 nors, the eldest daughter succeeds, to the exclusion of her sisters, as 
 the eldest daughter (in default of male heirs) succeeds to the crown 
 
 * Tlio Real Property Law Commission, issued after tliis motion, has fully in- 
 vestigated this subject, and made a very learned and satisfactory report, <>u which 
 bills have been founded, but are not yet passed. 
 
 | This evil has been all removed by the Wills Act, prepared by the Heal Pro- 
 perty Commissioners, and passed with some changes.
 
 550 LAW REFORM. 
 
 of England; in other manors, all the daughters succeed jointly, as 
 co-partners, after the manner of the Common Law. In some manors 
 a wife has her dower, one-third of the tenement, as in case of free- 
 hold. In others, she has, for her "free bench," one-half; and again, 
 in some, she takes the whole for life, to the exclusion of the heir. 
 The fines on death or alienation vary; the power and manner of 
 entailing or cutting off entails, vary; the taking of heriots and lords' 
 services varies. There are as many or more of these local laws than 
 in France, in the Pays de Coutiime, of which I have seen four 
 hundred enumerated, so as to make it the chief opprobrium of the 
 old French law, that it differed in every village. Is it right that such 
 varieties of custom should be allowed to have force in particular 
 districts, contrary to the general law of the land? Is it right, I may 
 also ask, that in London, Bristol, and some other places, the debts 
 due to a man should be subject to execution for what he owes him- 
 self, while in all the rest of England there is no such recourse; 
 although in Scotland, as in France, this most rational and equitable 
 law is universal?* 
 
 All these local peculiarities augment the obstacles, both to the con- 
 veyance and to the improvement of landed estates. They prevent the 
 circulation of property in a great degree; and they lessen the chance 
 that an owner of such tenements would otherwise have of raising 
 money, on their security, adequate to their value. The greater faci- 
 lity of conveyance is nothing set against the ignorance of local cus- 
 tom; and then copyhold property is not liable even for specialty debts, 
 nor can it be extended by elegit; and thus, absurd and unjust as is the 
 law which prevents freehold property from being charged with sim- 
 ple contract debtst, it goes further in this instance, and exempts the 
 copyhold from liability, even to those of the highest nature, a judg- 
 ment itself not giving the creditor any right of execution against it. 
 The obvious remedy to be adopted in this case is, to give all parts of 
 the country the same rules touching property; and, therefore, I would 
 propose an assimilation of the laws affecting real estates, all over 
 England, to take place at a given period, say twenty or thirty years 
 hence, so as to prevent interference with vested interests. 
 
 Having now, sir, pointed out some of the varieties of our law in 
 certain districts, its inequalities in respect of place, let us proceed 
 to examine whether it is more uniform and more equal in respect of 
 persons. And here we are met, at the very outset, with a most fear- 
 ful exception to the maxim, which describes the law as no respecter 
 of persons. It is commonly said that the Crown and the subject come 
 into court on equal terms. Lawyers of the present day do not, I am 
 aware, profess this; but that eminent dealer in panegyric, Mr. Justice 
 Blacksfone, has spoken as if the King had no greater advantage in 
 litigation than any of his people. It would have been well if he had 
 
 * This anomaly is remedied by the new bill about to pass on the Law of Debtor 
 and Creditor. 
 
 This evil has since been removed.
 
 LAW REFORM. 551 
 
 stated that this was only a fiction; though he must have been puzzled 
 to prove it, like other fictions, invented for the furtherance of justice. 
 It is true that the law itself makes no such pretensions to impartiality; 
 for of the two classes of manifest inequality which I am about to men- 
 tion, one is avowedly such, by reason, as it is said, of the prerogative; 
 although the oilier, just as substantial in reality, is not avowed to be 
 so. I begin with the latter. It is said, that the Crown can no more 
 take my estate that) I can another man's; for if I have a claim against 
 the Crown, I am told that I have a remedy, by the decent and respect- 
 ful mode, as they term it, of a petition de droit, or, in case of a title 
 by matter of record, a monstrans de droit. The same eloquent pane- 
 gyrist, whom I have mentioned, describing the very name of the pro- 
 cess to have arisen from the presumption of the law, that the King 
 can do no wrong, adds, that, from the great excellence ascribed to the 
 Crown, " to know of an injury and to redress it, are one and the same 
 thing; therefore the subject has only to make his grievance known by 
 his petition." From this is drawn the conclusion, that when a sub- 
 ject lias a right, he can have the means of defending it with equal 
 facility against the Crown as against any other party. Now, let us 
 see how far this consequence is, in point of fact, realized. The Crown 
 never moves by itself, but through the medium of the King's Attor- 
 ney-General. No proceeding can be taken against the Crown without 
 {\\efiat of the Attorney-General; and unless a party obtains that, all 
 his trouble and expense in going to Whitehall, and asking the permis- 
 sion of the Secretary of State, are lost, because all such affairs are re- 
 ferred to the crown lawyer; and if he should refuse leave, the only 
 remedy left to the subject is the very convenient and practical one of 
 impeaching that officer. It may be said that the Attorney-General 
 would not refuse his fiat, because it is a mere proceeding in the first 
 instance, like suing out an original writ, or a /////, to bring a cause 
 into the King's Bench; and the Attorney-General here is like the 
 Chancellor or the sealers of the writs elsewhere, who issue writs to 
 any suitor as a matter of course. But I make answer that, although 
 it ought to be so, it is not so. It is in the discretion of the Attorney- 
 General, that is, of your adversary's counsel, to let you bring your 
 action or not as he pleases. Why, I demand, should it be left in the 
 breast of any man to refuse that which another may claim as a right, 
 and as the lowest of all rights, to have his right inquired into by law? 
 To show you how this discretionary power is used, I might say 
 abused, I will mention a case; and, following the rule I prescribed to 
 myself at setting out, it shall be one that has come within my own 
 knowledge professionally. A consitlerable estate had, on a supposed 
 default of heirs, been granted to a gentleman of great respectability, a 
 friend of mine. After some time another individual set up a claim to 
 it, on the ground of being the heir of the body of the original grantee, 
 the first gift having been in tail male. The case was submitted to 
 me, and to a learned friend at the chancery bar; and we advised that 
 the party should proceed by petition of right. We examined all the 
 cases upon the subject, and deeming this the only mode, we applied to
 
 552 LAW REFORM. 
 
 the Attorney-General; and he refused his fiat, giving no better rea- 
 son than that we ought to have proceeded hy ejectment against the 
 tenant in possession. We preferred our writ of right against the 
 crown, as all lawyers term the petition de droit. Had the question 
 been with a subject, we might either have proceeded by ejectment to 
 recover possession, or by writ to try the mere right as the higher re- 
 medy; and no officer could have shut us out at either door by which 
 we chose to enter the court. Now, I can state conscientiously my 
 opinion, that the case of the individual alluded to was a strong one in 
 statement. It was one of pedigree, and certainly one of the clearest 
 I had seen on paper. I do not mean to assert, for I had no 
 means of ascertaining it, that it was unanswerable. There may 
 have been some gap in the chain, some marriage or some birth not 
 proved, or some other flaw in the claimant's title; but of that I can 
 form no judgment, because that I was not allowed to try; and this is 
 the hardship of the case, the matter of which, I hold, my client had 
 just reason to complain he was not allowed to bring forward his 
 proofs. Then, I ask, is it not a mere mockery in those panegyrists of 
 things as they are, to say that the crown and the subject stand on 
 equal footing?* 
 
 But the cases in which the same disparity prevails between their 
 rights, avowedly and by the declared sanction of the law, are much 
 more numerous; they are of constant occurrence, too, in practice; and 
 I will, therefore, mention them for the information of those who are 
 not lawyers, and, I believe I may say, of some who are. In the first 
 place, it is the general principle that a demurrer is an admission of 
 the facts in dispute; but this, it is said, does not extend to the crown, 
 and that, if defeated in this way, it can begin again, and is not con- 
 cluded. Secondly, it has been decided lately in the Exchequer I 
 \vas not in the case, but so I have heard, from those who attend that 
 court that no such thing is allowed as an exception for insufficiency 
 to an answer filed by the Attorney-General on behalf of the crown. 
 But the subject notoriously enjoys no such privilege; his answer is 
 open to all exceptions; were it not, you must, in suing him, take for 
 an answer just what he chooses to tell you, and he escapes the equi- 
 table jurisdiction entirely. Next (and an instance occurred lately, 
 which I argued in the Court of King's Bench, and which was decided 
 against me, without hearing the other side), wherever a suit is com- 
 menced, whether it be in Cumberland, Middlesex, or Cornwall (and 
 in Cornwall was the case I allude to), if the crown has any title which 
 may, however indirectly, come in question, although no party, the 
 proceedings can at once be removed by a more suggestion, not of 
 record, but on the part of the Attorney-General, stating it from his 
 place in court, and a trial must then be had at bar before the four 
 judges. In this way all the preparations made by the parties are put 
 an end to, and witnesses must be brought to town at an inordinate 
 expense, and under every disadvantage. There is no doubt that an 
 
 * This evil remains still without remedy.
 
 LAW REFORM. 553 
 
 allowance would, in such cases, be made by the crown to compensate 
 for this additional cost; but still the party has to pay in the first in- 
 stance, together with being taken away, as well as his witnesses, from 
 that part of the country in which he and they are known, to the 
 county of Middlesex, where the power of the crown is more accurately 
 known than the character of the other suitor. When this point was 
 argued, the court held the prerogative too clear to be discussed. 
 There is a fourth advantage which the crown possesses over any 
 other party. No person can, after the jury is sworn, withdraw a re- 
 cord, but must be nonsuited, to avoid a verdict. The crown has, to 
 my knowledge, withdrawn it, afier counsel hod been heard, and wit- 
 nesses examined, and the jury been charged by the judge; I have 
 known the record withdrawn while they were deliberating, and be- 
 cause they were deliberating, which indicated hesitation; and this late 
 retreat is made without the penalty to which any other party would 
 be liable, who had fled before the cause was called on, namely, the 
 costs of the day: for there is another unfairness to justify this course; 
 that as the crown is supposed above receiving costs, so it is to be ex- 
 empt also from paying them. But the reason of this I cannot possibly 
 see. I cannot grant that the digniiy of the crown places it above 
 taking costs, when I reflect that by the crown is here meant the 
 revenue raised from the people for the public service, and that, con- 
 sequently, the non-payment of costs to the crown is an increase of the 
 people's burthens. Hut, even if I could admit the propriety of the 
 crown's receiving none, it would by no means follow that it should 
 pay none to the subject, who is in a widely different predicament. 
 All this, however, arises out of notions derived from the feudal times, 
 when the crown was in a situation the very reverse of that in which 
 it stands at present, its income then arising almost entirely from a land 
 revenue. There is now no reason why it should be exempt from 
 paying, or disabled from receiving, in all cases where costs would be 
 due between common persons. Indeed, there has been of late years 
 an exception made in the cro\\ n law on this head, but so as to aug- 
 ment the inequality I complain of. In all stamp prosecutions, the 
 costs of the crown are paid by the unsuccessful defendant; so far does 
 it stoop from its former dignity; but not so low as to pay the defend- 
 ant a farthing of his costs should he be acquitted. 
 
 The last and the worst part of the history remains; whenever a 
 Special Jury is summoned in a Crown case, and that all the twelve 
 jurors do not attend, a Tales cannot be prayed to let the cause proceed, 
 without a warrant from the Attorney-General: so th;it it is in the power 
 of your adversary to refuse this at the time it may be most for his ad- 
 vantage, so to do; while you have no option whatever in case it should 
 be for his interest to proceed, and for yours to delay. I pray the House 
 will mark attentively what I am now about to relate, although, indeed. 
 I should apologize for thus appealing to them, after the singular 
 patience with winch I have been heard throughout, for the great length 
 of time I have already occupied. There was a case in the Conn of 
 Exchequer, in which I acted as counsel for the defendant, and had to 
 VOL. i. 47
 
 554 LAW REFORM. 
 
 subject a Crown witness to a severe cross-examination; he exhibited 
 strong indications of perjury, but the verdict went against me notwith- 
 standing. My learned friend, Mr. Sergeant Jones (whose talent and 
 professional skill entitle him to higher praise than any in my power to 
 bestow,) whether he profited by my experience, or was more dexterous 
 in dealing with the case, did honour to himself by succeeding in the 
 next trial, when the same witness was examined; for the suspicion of 
 perjury entertained before was now turned into certainty, and the party 
 acquitted. A prosecution for perjury was instituted against that man 
 and others connected with him; eighteen indictments were found at 
 the Sessions, and the Crown at once removed the whole by certiorar i 
 into the Court of King's Bench. There they were all to be tried, and 
 a former Attorney-General conducted the prosecution. On the first, 
 Meade, the witness I have mentioned, was clearly convicted. The 
 other seventeen were then to have been tried, and Mr. Sergeant Jones 
 called them on, but the Crown had made the whole eighteen Special 
 Jury causes: a sufficient number of jurymen did not attend; my learned 
 friend wanted to pray a Tales, and the Crown refused a warrant. 
 Thus an expense often thousand pounds was incurred, and a hundred 
 witnesses from Yorkshire were brought to London, all for nothing, 
 except, after the vexation, trouble, and delay, he had endured, to work 
 the ruin of the prosecutor, who had been first harassed upon the tes- 
 timony of the perjured witnesses. These poor Yorkshire farmers, 
 whom the villain had so vexed, had no more money to spend in law; 
 all the other prosecutions dropped; Meade obtained a rule for a new 
 trial, but funds were wanting to meet him again, and he escaped. So 
 that public justice was utterly frustrated, as well as the most grievous 
 wrong inflicted upon individuals. Nor did it end here; the poor farmer 
 was fated to lose his life by the transaction. Meade, the false witness, 
 and Law, the farmer whom he had informed against, and who was 
 become the witness against him upon the approaching trial, lived in 
 the same village; and one evening, in consequence, as was alleged, of 
 some song or madrigal sung by him in the street, this man Meade 
 seized a gun, and shot Law from his house dead upon the spot. He 
 was acquitted of murder, on the ground of something like provocation, 
 but he was found guilty of manslaughter, and such was the impression 
 of his guilt upon the mind of the court, that he was sentenced to two 
 years' imprisonment. A case of more complicated injustice one 
 fraught with more cruel injury to the parties, I never knew in this coun- 
 try, nor do I conceive that worse can be found in any other. We may 
 talk of our excellent institutions, and excellent they certainly are, 
 though I could wish we were not given to so much Pharisaical prais- 
 ing of them; but if, while others, who do more and talk less, go on 
 improving their laws, we stand still, and suffer all our worst abuses to 
 continue, we shall soon cease to be respected by our neighbours, or to 
 receive any praises save those we are so ready to lavish upon ourselves.* 
 
 * These inequalities in the Crown law, between the Crown and the Subject, stil 
 exist.
 
 LAW REFORM. 555 
 
 i. And now, having thus far cleared the way for examining the pro- 
 ceedings in our Courts of Justice, the first inquiry that meets us is, by 
 what means unnecessary litigation may be prevented; in other words, 
 suits unjustly and frivolously brought, and wrongfully defended, by 
 oppressive or intemperate parties. I shall here, as under almost all 
 the other heads of the subject, begin by laying down what I take to be 
 the sound principles of legislation applicable to the point, and then 
 comparing with these the provisions actually adopted by our jurispru- 
 dence. The first and most obvious step is, to remove the encourage- 
 ment given to rich and litigious suitors, by lessening the expense of all 
 legal proceedings; and I would put an end to all harassing and unjust 
 defences, by encouraging expedition. Next, I would not allow of any 
 action or proceeding which only profits the court and the practitioners, 
 and the object of which is always granted as a mere matter of course; 
 all things should be considered as done at once and for nothing, which 
 may be now done on a simple application to the court with some delay 
 and expense. Thirdly, no party should be sent to two courts where 
 one is able to afford him his whole remedy; nor to a dear and bad 
 court, when he can elsewhere have a cheaper and a better remedy; 
 nor should any one be obliged to come twice over to the same court 
 for different portions of his remedy, which he might have all in one 
 proceeding. Fourthly, whenever a strong presumption of right appears 
 on the part of a plaintiff, the burden 6f disputing his claim should be 
 thrown on the defendant. This I would extend to such cases as bills 
 of exchange, bonds, mortgages, and other such securities. In those 
 cases I think the plaintiff should be allowed to have his judgment, upon, 
 due notice given, unless good cause be, in the first instance, shown to 
 the contrary, and security given to prosecute a suit for setting the in- 
 strument aside.* This is a mode well known in the law of Scotland, 
 and would put an end to all those undefended causes, which are now 
 attended with such great and useless expense, as well as injurious 
 delay to the parties and the public. Fifthly, I would suggest, that in 
 all cases where future suits are to be apprehended, proceedings might 
 be adopted immediately to raise the question, and quiet the title. The 
 law on this head, also, is very different in the two parts of the island. 
 In England, it is not possible to have the opinion of any court, until 
 the parlies are actually engaged in a lawsuit, opportunities for which 
 may very frequently not occur until the witnesses to prove a case may 
 be dead, or an infant, or a person living abroad and incapable of well 
 defending his right, has come into possession, lint the Scotch law 
 furnishes a kind of action, the adoption of which may be productive 
 of the greatest benefit, as 1 have once and again heard Lord E!don hint 
 in the House of Lords. I know very well that here we may file a 
 bill for perpetuating testimony, but there must be an actual vested 
 right in the party instituting the suit; and the proceeding is, besides, so 
 cumbrous, as rarely to be used. The Scotch law, on the contrary, per- 
 
 * This important improvement has since been made, but tlie declaratory action 
 has not yet been introduced.
 
 556 LAW REFORM. 
 
 mits a Declaratory Action to be instituted by the party in possession or 
 expectancy, quia timef, and enables him to make all whose claims he 
 dreads parties, so as to obtain a decision of the question immediately. 
 This is, of course, and very properly, at the expense of him who brings 
 forward the suit for his own interest, unless where a very obvious 
 benefit arises to the other party; for in Scotland they have nothing 
 like our statute of Gloucester, and costs are always in the discretion of 
 the court, as with us in equity. Sixthly, I would abolish all obsolete 
 proceedings, which serve only as a trap to ihe unwary, or tools in the 
 hands of litigious and dishonest parties, and lie hid or unheeded until, 
 unexpectedly, they are brought forth to work injustice.* For an in- 
 stance, I will name Wager of Law, a defence which may be set up in 
 answer to an action of detinue, or of debt on simple contract. 'I his 
 is another of the remains of the old system. The defendant has only 
 to swear that he does not owe the sum of money claimed by the 
 plaintiff, and bring eleven others to swear that they believe him; and 
 a defendant would certainly be badly off if he could not find out so 
 many persons to do this kind office for him, as he needs only bring 
 those who know him, but know nothing at all of the circumstances, 
 for the less they know, the more ready will they be to swear they be- 
 lieve their friend. He has only to place them on opposite sides, at the 
 end of the table (for the wisdom of past ages hath carefully fixed the 
 stations which the parties are to occupy pending this "solemnity,") 
 get them to swear, and there is an end at once of the action. It is true 
 that pleas of this kind are seldom pleaded, though it was done some 
 time ago in the Common Pleas; and the oldest practitioners there, not 
 being acquainted with the plea, were about demurring to it, when it 
 was discovered to be a law wager well pleaded, and a complete good 
 defence in law, though the practice was obsolete. 
 
 Now, these being the fundamental principles that should guide us 
 on this head, nothing can depart more widely from them than our prac- 
 tice, and nothing can be more easy than making it conform to them. 
 In the first place, without throwing away a thought upon the pain 
 which I should necessarily inflict upon some of rny learned friends 
 much wedded to such lore, without caring a rush for the quantity of 
 curious learning which would thus be thrown to waste, or dropping 
 a tea'r over the musty records which must be swept away, 1 would 
 abolish at once the whole doctrine and procedure of fines and recove- 
 ries.! I hope I may not offend the ears of my respected brethren the 
 conveyancers; but I must say, that if ever there was an absurdity not 
 to be tolerated, it is those fictitious suits, at any time, but, above all, in 
 the present state of society. 
 
 I wish to make myself understood, for I see by the countenances of 
 some gentlemen that they do riot quite comprehend the whole absur- 
 dity of the law respecting fines and recoveries. I do not by any means 
 wish to interfere with the power of making, or of barring entails; I 
 
 * The new rules of pleading and practice have removed these evils. 
 | These have now been entirely abolished.
 
 LAW REFORM. 557 
 
 consider the English law as hitting very happily the just medium be- 
 tween too great strictness and too great latitude, in the disposition of 
 landed property; sufficient restraints upon perpetuities, upon endless 
 settlements, are provided, to allow a free commerce in land, as far as 
 that is consistent with the interests of agriculture, and the exigencies 
 of our mixed constitution; while as much power is given of annexing 
 estates to families, as may prevent a minute division of property, and 
 preserve the aristocratic branch of the government. With the sub- 
 stance of our law in entail, then, I have no wish to meddle; all I de- 
 sire is, to abolish the ridiculous machinery by which fines are levied 
 and recoveries suffered. Every gentleman knows that if he has an 
 estate in fee he can sell it, or bestow it in any way he may please, but 
 if he has an estate tail, to which he succeeds in (he long vacation, he 
 can go, on the first day of Michaelmas Term, and levy a fine, which 
 destroys the expectant rights of the issue in tail; or he may, by means 
 of a recovery, get rid of those rights and of all remainders over, lie 
 can thus, by going through certain mere forms, make himself absolute 
 master of his estate, and do with it as he pleases. But this must be 
 done through the Court of Common Pleas, at certain seasons of the 
 year; and why should there exist a necessity for going there? Why 
 not, if it be necessary, pay the fines which are due, without going 
 there at all? I, the other day, asked this question of some learned 
 friends, Why force tenants in tail into court, for mere form's sake? 
 They laughed at my simplicity, and said, " All this was asked a hun- 
 dred years ago; there is no necessity for the proceeding, only to keep 
 up the payment of the King's silver, alienation fines, and other duties." 
 In case of bankruptcy, the necessity for those forms is not felt. A 
 trader who is tenant in tail commits an act of bankruptcy, and by the 
 assignment under the commission not only the interest vested in him 
 is conveyed, but all remainders expectant upon it are destroyed for 
 the benefit of his creditors, and the estate passes to his assignees free 
 from all restriction. The courts have held the conveyance in bank- 
 ruptcy to be a statutory barring of the entail an enlarger of the estate 
 tail to a fee, as indeed the bankrupt laws evidently intended.* Now, 
 I would do that for honest landowners which the law at present per- 
 mits to be done for insolvent tradesmen and their creditors. So, too, 
 a man and his wife cannot convey an estate of the wife without a fine 
 or a recovery, neither can the wife be barred of her dower without a 
 similar proceeding. The reason is, the influence her husband may 
 possess over her mind; and, consequently, a judge takes the woman, 
 in these cases, into a private room, to examine her, first, as to whether 
 she acts from fear, and then, when that is out of the case, whether she 
 is influenced by favour and affection; and he also examines her as to 
 
 Of the bar to the issue in tail there can he no doubt; but them are decisions 
 which lean against the operation of the bankruptcy, to bar the remainders OVIT, con- 
 trary to lilackstone's decided opinion ('2 Com. 28(5, 3(il.) and, it should seem, to 
 the plain intent of the legislature. See Doe v. Clarke, 5 B. A. 4 5 8, and Jennings 
 r. Taylenrc, 3 B. A. 557, where it is considered that a base fee only passes in th 
 remainder. 
 
 47*
 
 558 LAW REFORM. 
 
 any temporary increase of affection from any passing cause; and then, 
 when she has purged herself of all temporary increase of affection, of 
 all fear, and all love, she is allowed to give her consent. I would pro- 
 pose, in place of all this inquiry, not always very delicate, nor ever 
 very satisfactory, to let husband and wife join in a common convey- 
 ance, with the consent of a guardian to be appointed, or of the next 
 male relative of the wife, who is not related to the husband, and not 
 interested in either the succession or the conveyance. 
 
 Now, there is certainly nothing very real in a fine; but as to 
 recoveries, I ask, do those persons who seem to hold by them, know 
 at all what they avowedly proceed upon? They go upon the ground 
 of compensation in value being paid to the remainder-man, whose 
 right they cut off, and who, but for this fictitious suit, would have a 
 title to take the estate after the tenant-in-tail's decease. He is said 
 to recover a compensation in value; and from whom does he get it? 
 Why, the common vouchee, who is the crier of the Court of Com- 
 mon. Pleas, and who, like the man at the custom-house obliged to 
 take all the oaths other people do not like, lies groaning under the 
 weight of all the liabilities he has incurred to every remainder-man, 
 since he became crier, and answerable for the millions of property, 
 the rights to which, in remainder, have been barred, he not being 
 worth a shilling. Locke says, that a madman is one who reasons 
 rightly from wrong premises; so it is with the lawyers on recoveries, 
 who argue very ingeniously, and even soundly and consistently, on. 
 the principle of the compensation, and whose conclusions could in no 
 wise be impeached, if you once allowed the fact, that those in the 
 remainder are compensated by the proceedings. Indeed, it happened 
 to myself, not long ago,;in a case where a very large estate was in 
 question, to argue, and to prevail, respecting the effect of a recovery, 
 on this very ground of compensaiion in value. I there had to con- 
 tend that the claimant was barred by the recovery, in consequence of 
 the compensation received from the vouchee, though it was quite 
 certain that, from the vouchee, there never was, nor ever could be, 
 received a single shilling. My argument, on that occasion, did not 
 excite a smile in the court, because the principles of the law were 
 known to be thus established, and the consequences were of serious 
 import, be the premises ever so ludicrous. But, were I to use the 
 same argument elsewhere, it would, if understood, be received with 
 much less gravity. Put an end, then, to all such ridiculous forms, 
 which have no earthly use but to raise a little money by way of fees; 
 and which, beside creating expense and delay, and oftentimes pre- 
 venting tenants in tail from passing their property by will, which 
 they cannot if they die before suffering the recovery, give rise to a 
 number of questions in law, often very puzzling, always dilatory and 
 costly not rarely to mistakes in fact: as where I knew an estate go 
 to the tenant in tail in remainder, instead of the recoveree's heir-at- 
 law or devisee, which he fully intended it should, merely because in 
 suffering the recovery an omission was made of one parcel. 
 
 Sir, I also would put an end to those imaginary trusts in settlements
 
 LAW REFORM. 559 
 
 for the purpose of preserving contingent remainders. It has been said 
 that some members of this House, who, during the Commonwealth 
 retired to the country and employed themselves in conveyancing, in- 
 vented those refinements which characterize what are called Strict 
 Settlements. I repeat, that my object is not to touch the principle of 
 the law of entails, as it now exists in this country, believing that 
 owners of estates should not be laid under greater restrictions than 
 they now are in disposing of them by will after their death, or by 
 settlement upon marriages in their families. But let the purpose of the 
 owner be accomplished more simply and more easily than can now be 
 done. I would allow every man to settle or to devise his property to 
 A. during his life, and after him to B. and C. in succession, making 
 by plain words so many life estates, and giving a fee to the person 
 who, by our present law, takes the first estate tail, not allowing the 
 latter to have any power over the property until it became vested in 
 possession, but requiring that, in order to affect it while in expectancy, 
 he and the tenant for life should join in some simple conveyance as a 
 feoff men t, whereby the settlement might, if the parties chose, be 
 carried on. The property then would not be alienable an hour 
 sooner than it now is, and it would be alienable without fine or 
 recovery; and I would make the act, which the law now deems a 
 discontinuance, as a feoffment in fee by tenant for life, absolutely 
 void to all purposes, instead of making a forfeiture of the particular 
 estate of the feoffer, though void as a conveyance; so that I would 
 get rid of the necessity of trustees being interposed to save the con- 
 tingent uses from destruction. 
 
 Again, I would restore the Statute of Uses to what it was clearly 
 intended to be. Our ancestors made that law, by which, if land 
 were given to A. for the use of B., the latter was deemed the legal 
 owner, the use being executed in him, just as if A. did not exist. It 
 was justly observed by Lord Ilardwicke, that all the pains taken by 
 this famous law ended in the adding of three words to a conveyance. 
 This has been said by conveyancers to be a severe remark," but it is 
 perfectly correct; for the courts of equity invented second uses or 
 trusts, by holding with the courts of law that the statute did not 
 apply to land given to A. to the use of B., in trust for C.; that it 
 executed the use only in B., but not in C. ; therefore the whole pro- 
 vision is evaded, by making the gift "to Me use of B., in trust for 
 C.;" and these three words send the whole matter into Chancery, 
 contrary to the plain intent of the statute. It was also held that 
 copyhold estates are not within the statute in any way; and there 
 are other nice exceptions, but not much better grounded. Can there 
 
 * Some have nuestioned its authenticity, as not to he found in a MS. note of 
 Hopkins r. Hopkins; but the words are far too remarkable to have been invented: 
 "By this means a statute, made upon rc,it consideration, introduced in a 
 solemn and pompous manner, by this strict construction, has had no other effect 
 than to add at moat three words to a conveyance." 1 Alk. f>'Jl. The remark, 
 nearly in the same words, is adopted by Ulackstone, who cites Lord Ilurdwicke 
 in support of it. 2 Com. 336.
 
 560 LAW REFORM. 
 
 be any reason whatever for not making all such estates legal at once, 
 and restoring them to the jurisdiction of the common law, by recog- 
 nising, as the owner, the person to whom in reality the estate is 
 given, and passing over him who is a mere nominal party?* 
 
 Another deviation from the principles I have laid down, and a great 
 source of multiplicity of suits, is the law with respect to agreements 
 for sales, leases, and other conveyances. Thus, if I agree with a per- 
 son to give him a lease, though he, under the agreement, becomes my 
 tenant, he is my equitable tenant only, but not my legal tenant. He 
 may be possessed of a written agreement, signed and sealed, for a 
 lease of ten years, and may occupy under it, but he has no lease 
 which a court of law can take notice of; and if an ejectment is 
 brought, he must go out. He may go into a court of equity on his 
 agreement, if that is any comfort to him; he may apply for a decree 
 against me to perform my agreement; but till then his claims are not 
 recognised in a court of common law. If an injunction be brought, 
 the expenses are further multiplied. Why, I ask, should not the 
 agreement, such as I have described, be as good as a lease; when, in 
 substance, it is the very same thing, and only wants a word added or 
 left out to make it the same in legal effect too? A case illustrative of 
 this subject happened to come within my own observation. I was 
 counsel in a case at York, where an agreement had been entered into 
 and possession given; but because it did not contain words of present 
 demise, it was no lease, and therefore the tenant could not stand a 
 moment against the ejectment that was brought, but was driven into 
 the Court of Chancery, where the other party could just as little stand 
 against him. How much inconvenience, expense, and delay, then, 
 might be saved, if such an agreement were pronounced equivalent to 
 a lease; and, in general, everything were supposed done in one court 
 which may be ordered as a matter of course to be done by another 
 reserving, no doubt, all objections on the head of fraud, mistake, sur- 
 prise, and the like, which may be raised by pleading at law, just as 
 easily as in equity. 
 
 In like manner, I would allow a legatee to sue an executor or ad- 
 ministrator for his legacy ,t and the mortgager to sue for his rights. 
 It is always said that in these and the like cases of active trusts, 
 accounts must be taken; and so they must in every action where there 
 is a matter of set-off against a demand. The old action of account 
 might be greatly improved; and by its aid, and by reference to arbi- 
 tration, where necessary, much that now goes to equity might be dis- 
 posed of at law. The only reason why such cases as these, where 
 the assets are to be marshalled and cross claims considered, now go 
 into the Court of Chancery, is, not for any superior fitness of that 
 
 * The late Wills-Act has introduced very great improvements into the law 
 respecting executing devises, and put an end to by far the most fruitful source of 
 vexatious litigation on this head. 
 
 f The Local Courts hill, brought in according to the recommendation of the 
 Common Law commissioners appointed in consequence of this motion, provided 
 for these defects, but it was thrown out by a bare majority in the Lords, 1833.
 
 LAW REFORM. 561 
 
 court itself, but because of its appendage, the masters' office, without 
 which it would be no better able than the King's Bmch to manage 
 even long trusts, chronic cases, as they have been termed, though 
 every suit in equity might be thus named. Let the court of King's 
 Bench have an equal number of masters let arbitrators be publicly 
 appointed, to whom parties may refer before any expense has been 
 incurred, as they do now after all the bill has been run up nay, to 
 whom they may go without even consulting an attorney and if this 
 machinery be found not enough effectually and properly to despatch 
 the business of the court, let its machinery be increased, and sure I 
 am it would be the cheapest and most powerful that ever was set up. 
 It would do away with the ridiculous importance attached to a few 
 words of conveyance; it would oust the jurisdiction of the Court of 
 Chancery in all the matters of which I have been speaking, and 
 which it has from time to time drawn over from the common law, to 
 which those matters originally belonged. Then the Courts of Equity 
 would be left to execute their ordinary jurisdiction in matters of ac- 
 count requiring a long course of time, and minute and daily attention 
 cases calling not for decision, but superintendence to the care 
 of infants, idiots, and insolvent estates, and other matters which it 
 would be impossible for a Court of Common Law effectually to take 
 charge of. 
 
 Again, on the same principle of avoiding multiplicity of suits, why, 
 in ejectments, should two processes be requisite to give the plaintiff 
 his remedy? As things now stand, after a man has succeeded iti one 
 action, and established his title to the possession, he must have re- 
 course to another, to recover that which he ought to have obtained by 
 one and the same verdict that established his title the mesne profits. 
 Why could not the same jury settle the matter at once? Why is an 
 individual driven to maintain two actions for the purpose of obtaining 
 one and the same remedy? Or why should not the jury that tries the 
 right, also assess the damages? Mr. Tennyson's bill, which was in- 
 tended to remedy some part of this evil, is only permissive; it ought 
 to have been compulsory. It is partial, and it is only recommend- 
 atory, and its recommendations are not always attended to, because 
 the lawyers, having the choice, do not think fit to pursue that which 
 is least profitable; they choose the two actions, when one would suffice 
 for the interests of justice for the interests of the plaintiff and defend- 
 ant for all interests except those of the practitioners." 
 
 ii. Having considered how the number of needless suits may be 
 diminished, I now proceed to the next head of my inquiry to ascer- 
 tain how, after their number is reduced as low as possible, and (hose 
 only brought into court which ought to be tried, you may best shorten 
 the suits brought, by disposing of them in the shortest time, and with 
 the least expense. And this topic leads me to examine the principles 
 which ought to be adopted for encouraging the parties to come to an 
 amicable settlement as speedily as possible. The law cites as iis war- 
 
 This defect lias since been supplied l>y legislative enactment.
 
 562 LAW REFORM. 
 
 rant for certain steps in every suit, the injunction of Scripture "Agree 
 with thy adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him, lest 
 at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge 
 deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say 
 unto thee, thou shah by no means come out thence till thou hast paid 
 the uttermost farthing." The latter part of the text is applicable 
 enough to the proceedings under the English law; and this scriptural 
 advice to compromise ought to be constantly set before the eyes of 
 suitors in all our courts, with the penalty denounced. Our law, how- 
 ever, no sooner adopts the principle, by allowing a party to impart, 
 than it departs from the spirit of it; for it must be observed, that the 
 delay of imparlance is admissible, not " in the way,' 7 but in the court, 
 after arrest, and when the effect is only to produce unnecessary loss 
 of time, and fees equally unnecessary. Here, however, the sound 
 principles are as obvious as before. Whatever brings the parties to 
 their senses as soon as possible, especially by giving each a clear view 
 of his chance of success or failure, and, above all things, making him 
 well acquainted with his adversary's case at the earliest possible mo- 
 ment, will always be for the interests of justice, of the parties them- 
 selves, and indeed of all but the practitioners. It is the practitioners, 
 generally, that determine how the matter shall proceed, and it may be 
 imagined that their own interests are not the last attended to. The 
 seeming interest of two parties disposed to be litigious, in many cases 
 appears to be different from the interests of justice, although their real 
 interests, if strictly examined, will not uufrequently be found to be the 
 same. Now, justice is embarrassed by the disingenuousness of con- 
 flicting parties; justice wants the cases of both to be fully and early 
 stated; but both parties take care to inform each other as little as pos- 
 sible, and as late as possible, of the merits of their respective cases. 
 One tells as much of his cise as he thinks good for the furtherance of 
 his claim, and the frustration of the enemy's so does the other give 
 only as much of his case in answer as may help him, without aiding 
 his adversary; and the judge is oftentimes left to guess at the truth in 
 the trick and conflict of the two. The interest of the court and of 
 justice being to make both parties come out with the whole of the case 
 as early as possible, the law should never lend itself to their conceal- 
 ments. This remark extends to the proof as well as the statement of 
 the case. Au intimation of what the evidence is, may often stop a 
 cause at once. In Scotland, the law in this respect is better than ours; 
 for no man can produce a written instrument on the trial without 
 having previously shown it to his adversary. For want of this salu- 
 tary rule, we have often seen the most useless litigation protracted 
 for the sole benefit of the practitioners. I was myself lately engaged 
 in a cause, the circumstances of which will give the House an idea 
 of the mischief. I was instructed not to show a certain receipt to the 
 opposite party, as my client, the defendant, meant to nonsuit his ad- 
 versary in great style, as he would call it. Well, the plaintiff (an 
 executor) stated his case, and called his witnesses to prove the debt. 
 I did not take the trouble to cross-examine, which would have been
 
 LAW REFORM. 563 
 
 quite unnecessary. Equally so was it to address the jury. I acknow- 
 ledged the truth of all that had been sworn on the other side, but added 
 that it was useless, as I happened to have a receipt for the money, 
 which had been paid to the testator. This, of course, put an end to 
 the case. The sum sought to be recovered did not exceed twenty 
 pounds, and the expenses could not have been less than a hundred. 
 If that action had been brought in Scotland, it never could have come 
 to trial, nor, indeed, been prosecuted beyond the mere demand: for, 
 this receipt being shown, the claim would have been abandoned. 
 Here some person or other, I will not say who, had an interest in the 
 cause being suffered to proceed, and the law enabled him to accom- 
 plish his purpose. I think, sir, the adoption of some such rule as the 
 Scotch might be desirable. At least, it would be well to inquire how 
 it works in Scotland, and be guided by the result.* 
 
 Next, the greatest encouragement should be given to compromises 
 in all cases. At present the law recognises the principle to a certain 
 extent, and permits money to be paid into court, in some instances, 
 as cases of contract and quasi-contract, where the damages are cer- 
 tain. But nothing can be less judicious than restricting the power of 
 paying money into court to those classes of causes, and excluding 
 actions upon contract with uncertain damages, and actions upon tort, 
 which are far more likely to be brought hastily, or obstinately de- 
 fended, because they are accompanied by irritated feelings.t The 
 earliest opportunity should be afforded in all cases to each party of 
 getting rid of the suit on receiving or making compensation. I would, 
 therefore, extend the right of paying into court, or tendering amends, 
 to all cases whatever. As ihe law now stands, it is only magistrates, 
 officers, and other persons specially protected by the statutes of James 
 I, and George II, who can thus proceed in actions for injury offered 
 to the person or proper! y4 
 
 But the great means of shortening litigation are to be found in an 
 enlargement of our law of arbitrament. I much fear that this, my 
 next proposal, may seem strange, especially as coming from a pro- 
 fessional man; for it goes directly to abridge the length and the 
 expense of law proceedings in a great number of cases, and of pre- 
 venting not a few from ever coming into court. But it is calculated 
 to secure justice effectually, without which no saving of expense or 
 of time deserves the name of an improvement. Now I do not lay 
 claim to any peculiar disinterestedness in broaching this rnaiter. Few 
 persons, it is true, have less interest in diminishing the amount of 
 business in our courts, because there are not many who gain more 
 
 * The late rules of the judges, under the act of 1833, have, to a great degree, 
 provided this remedy. 
 
 f It has heen held that money cannot he paid into court in actions for breach of 
 contract to deliver goods at a fixed price (3 13. and P. 14), for dilapidations (87 K. 
 47), on bond for money in a foreign currency depreciated (57 R. 87). Chainhro 
 J., in the first and the strongest of these cases, says "It could not be done with- 
 out violating every rule of practice." See Com. J'leader, C. 10. 
 Thia is now remedied.
 
 564 LAW REFORM. 
 
 by it, and to whom, therefore, the abuses which I am describing, if 
 such they be, are more profitable. But I really believe that lopping off 
 needless litigation, by measures calculated to lessen the expense of 
 procedure in all its branches, would greatly increase the number of 
 lawsuits real suits, which ought to be encouraged, as necessary to 
 justice, but which at present are kept out of court, by the double tax 
 of cost and delay. The county courts ought to be diligently reformed 
 their process extended to matters of a larger amount, and of 
 greater variety their officers rendered more able and effeciive.* 
 This improvement of itself would greatly diminish the number of 
 trifling suits brought into the higher judicatures; and how can I, or 
 any one conversant with the practice of the law, adequately express 
 the benefits of having a speedy and cheap redress for petty wrongs, 
 when we daily witness the evils of the opposite system! How often 
 have I been able to trace bankruptcies and insolvencies to some law- 
 suit about ten or fifteen pounds, the costs of which have mounted up 
 to large sums, and been the beginning of embarrassment! Nay, how 
 often have we seen men in the situation described by Dean Swift, 
 who represents Gulliver's father as ruined by gaining a Chancery 
 suit, with costs! The public generally are little aware of the number 
 of petty actions forming the bulk of every cause paper at Nisi Prius. 
 Professional men can tell how many now stand for trial concerning 
 demands under twenty pounds; how few of these have been thus 
 far ripened by the fostering care of the profession and the offices, 
 under a hundred pounds expense. I made the Prothonotary, four 
 years ago, at Lancaster, give me a list of fifty verdicts obtained at 
 the Lent Assizes; the average was under fourteen pounds, including, 
 however, two or three actions brought to try rights, where the 
 damages were of course nominal. But if the money recovered 
 amounted in all to less than nine hundred pounds, the costs incurred 
 certainly exceeded five thousand pounds; fifty pounds a-side being 
 indeed a very low average of costs as between attorney and client. 
 It is not too much to affirm that not above a tiMith part of those fifty 
 cases would ever have seen the court at Lancaster, had a right system 
 prevailed; that is, if the parties who were to bear the heavy charge, 
 whether of losing or seeming to gain (for the loss, generally speaking, 
 only differed in degree) had been early apprized of their real situation, 
 and exercised their own judgment upon the question of going on or 
 settling betimes. An extension and improvement of arbitration is 
 one of the remedies I have ventured to suggest, at least for further 
 discussion. If arbitrators were publicly appointed, before whom 
 parties themselves might go in the first instance, state their grounds 
 of contention, and hear the calm opinion of able and judicious men 
 upon their own statements, their anger would often be cooled, and 
 their confidence abated, so as to do each other justice without any 
 expense or delay. Such a tribunal exists in France, under the name 
 
 * The Act of 1833 has extended and improved this jurisdiction materially; but 
 the Local Courts Bill would have done so far more effectually.
 
 LAW REFORM. 565 
 
 of Cour de Conciliation; in Denmark it exists; and for certain 
 mercantile causes, in Holland also. If it be thought too great a 
 change to introduce it here, in what I deem its best form, I think 
 much good would arise from a modificaiion of it (he appointment 
 of public arbitrators, who might at all times sit and take references 
 by consent, with process to compel the attendance of witnesses, and 
 the execution of their awards. At least we should see all those cases 
 taken before them at once, which are now brought at great cost into 
 courts wholly unable to try them, and are uniformly greeted with the 
 observation from both Bench and Bar "Oh, an account and a set-off 
 a hundred items so many issues no judge or jury can try it," 
 after all the expense of trying it has been incurred.* 
 
 iii. The course of our inquiry has thus brought us, in the third 
 place, to the commencement of a suit; and here the principles and 
 rules which present themselves are as obvious as they are important. 
 The first is to prevent the debtor's escape, and hinder him from delay- 
 ing his creditor, by wilfully absenting himself. The second is to give 
 the debtor due notice of the particular nature of the claim, so that he 
 may defend himself if right, or yield if wrong, that is, if actually in- 
 debted. The third is, to give the debtor no unnecessary inconveni- 
 ence, till found to be in the wrong (that is, indebted), as far as is con- 
 sistent with due security to the plaintiff against a defendant likely to 
 escape; taking care also to protect the defendant against a plaintiff 
 likely to oppress him with costs, and leave him without remedy on 
 dropping the suit. 
 
 Now, against all these, which I consider cardinal virtues in this im- 
 portant stage of procedure, our laws offend most grievously. For, in 
 the first place, we assume the defendant to be in the wrong, and not 
 only so, but to be meditating flight from his country and his home; 
 we, therefore, arrest him immediately, and cast him into prison, or 
 compel him to find bail. A member of this honourable House, if, by 
 the acceptance of an office, he happens, for the space of a few days, 
 to be out of Parliament, may thus be arrested, and put to the most 
 serious inconvenience. It might have happened the other day to the 
 member for Oxford. If he bought twenty pounds' worth of goods on 
 a Saturday, went to his villa and returned on Monday, on knocking 
 at his door he might meet with an arrest, and he must then accom- 
 pany the sheriff's officer to a lock-up house till he procured bail. He 
 would then do what I understand is usual in such cases, send for his 
 butcher and his baker, and get bailed; but a gentleman could not, 
 
 * Out of the Statute of William, arbitration is no favourite of our law. An 
 agreement or a covenant to refer is waste paper; no action can he maintained for 
 a breach of either;| and equity will not enforce the performance. (G Ves. H1H.) 
 A {(reat judge said on this case, that he had, since a cause, ho mentioned, made it 
 a rule never to recommend an arbitration. The Local Courts Hill established 
 Courts of Conciliation, under tho name of Courts of Reconcilement, with tlio 
 fullest powers. 
 
 t The proceedings in arbitrations arc very much improved by the lute Act of 1-33. 
 VOL. I. '18
 
 566 LAW REFORM. 
 
 after that, complain so well of the meat, or the bread, or the bills 
 during the next half year. Certainly he would not be in a situation, 
 the week after, to criticise his tradesman's conduct with a good grace. 
 I have known worse inconvenience happen from such use being 
 made of the law, at elections; indeed, when candidates have carried 
 their adversary's voters to Norway, instead of letting them reach Ber- 
 wick, we may believe they would not scruple to use the writ for a 
 similar purpose. But however malicious or spiteful may be the mo- 
 tives of any one in so employing the process of the law, there being a 
 probable cause of detention, and the process not being abused, no 
 action lies against the wrong doer. If he have no accomplices, so as 
 to fall within the charge of conspiracy, he is safe. To the wealthy, 
 however, all these inconveniences are trivial; but how does such a 
 proceeding operate on a poor man, or a tradesman, in moderate cir- 
 cumstances? He has no facilities for obtaining bail; if he does, he 
 pays one way or another afterwards for the favour; and if he cannot 
 procure it, he must go to prison. Perhaps no man ever holds up his 
 head, or is the same man again, after having once been in prison, un- 
 less for a political offence. But, I ask, why should a man ever be 
 arrested on mesne process at all? The honourable member for Mon- 
 trose has brought this subject before the House, and he has my hearty 
 thanks for it. On what ground of common sense does our law in this 
 matter rest? Why should it be supposed that a man, owing twenty 
 pounds, will leave his house, his wife, his children, his country, his 
 pursuits; and incur voluntarily the punishment awarded for great 
 crimes, by banishing himself for life? Yet the law always proceeds 
 on the supposition that a man will run away the moment he has 
 notice given him of an action for the debt. Some men might possibly 
 act thus, but their conduct forms the exception, not the rule; and do 
 you legislate wisely do you legislate like men of sense do you 
 legislate with common consistency when you denounce a penalty 
 against all men in order to meet a case not likely to occur once in a 
 thousand times? 
 
 What would be the effect of altering the law in this respect? Could 
 its reformation injure anyone? Certainly not; on the contrary, it 
 would benefit all classes of the community. The very first conse- 
 quence of such an alteration would be to make tradesmen less easy in 
 giving credit, by rendering them more cautious. At present they are 
 induced to rely on the suddenness of personal arrest for compelling a 
 payment of their demands, in preference to others, and thus to specu- 
 late upon the chance of payment from insolvent persons; so they enter 
 into a competition not an honest, praiseworthy competition, in the 
 correctness of their dealings, or the goodness of their wares but a 
 competition in the credit to give to needy and profligate, or suspected 
 and extravagant men, unable to pay anything like the whole amount 
 of the debts which the rashness or cupidity of tradesmen may allow 
 them to contract. And on whom does the loss thus incurred by the 
 tradesman finally fall? Not unfrequently on those who can and do 
 pay; they have to answer for those who do not; they pay a sort of
 
 LAW REFORM. 567 
 
 del credere in proportion to the loss incurred through giving credit 
 a species of insurance on all bad debts. Even the more respectable 
 customers would be all the more regular in their dealings and econo- 
 mical in their habits, were they never tempted by easy credits to buy 
 what they have not money to pay for.* 
 
 My next objection to the present system, under this head, is, that 
 no proceeding can take place in our courts unless there be an actual 
 appearance. We outlaw a man to compel an appearance. Why do 
 so? Why can we not proceed as in the case of ejectment, where a 
 notice is left at the dwelling-house? Why can we not leave a writ 
 at a man's house, stating what we sue him for; and only when we 
 think him about to fly, call upon him to give surety? I repeat, why 
 not send a writ to the known domicile or house of business of the 
 debtor; a writ, too, which shall plainly describe the cause of action, 
 instead of serving him with a writ that only tells him he is a prisoner 
 for some reason or other, which in due time he will be informed of; 
 and if he cannot be found, outlawing him after nine months' delay? 
 This is done in Holland, a mercantile country, and in Scotland, a wary 
 country, where too great charity is not generally shown to the debtor; 
 at least the Scotch have not the reputation of being unnecessarily 
 merciful on such occasions; yet a writ to take the debtor's person is 
 only obtainable there if he be in meditationefugas. Our process of 
 outlawry is, in its nature, extremely foolish; its object being to compel 
 an appearance, which, after all, is not necessary, provided the party 
 wilfully absents himself after due notice. If a man chooses to keep 
 away, why not proceed without him after such a delay, and so many 
 services at his place of residence as shall insure him having a know- 
 ledge of the action? As for any scruple about proceeding against an 
 absent man, without making perfectly sure of his having notice, the 
 present law has no right to say a word on the subject; for its process 
 of outlawry is neither more nor less than a mean by which you harass 
 an absent man, without even pretending to give him notice. He may 
 be in the Greek Islands, on the coast of Africa, or in the backwoods 
 of America, and his creditor can outlaw him, and proceed to have his 
 goods forfeited, without his being aware of the transaction, and with- 
 out the proceeds of the forfeiture necessarily benefiting any one but 
 the Crown. In exchequer cases, it is true, the debt and costs, not ex- 
 ceeding 50, are paid out of the fund which arises from selling the 
 goods; in all other cases, a party must apply to the Lords of the Trea- 
 sury. Why should this be? What have the Lords of the Treasury 
 to do with the legal remedy of plaintiffs in suits? Why send anyone 
 to the executive power for the redress which the judicial authority 
 alone ought to administer?! 
 
 iv. We are now to suppose the parties in court, and called upon to 
 
 I'ponthe grounds here stated, thn Common Law Commissioners recommended 
 abolishing imprisonment lor debt entirely, unless where fraud had lieen committed, 
 or contumacy exerted, or escape meditated. The hill now before Parliament will 
 effect thin. 
 
 \ This clumsy and inconsistent process remains unaltered.
 
 568 LAW REFORM. 
 
 state their cases, the claim of one, and defence of the other. Anciently 
 this pleading, as it is termed, was by word of month; but in more 
 modern times it has been carried on in writing. Originally, too, Pleas 
 were in French, afterwards in Latin, and for a century past, by a great, 
 but most salutary innovation, doubtless much reviled and dreaded in 
 its day, they have been conducted in English. I must own that I 
 approach the subject of Special Pleading, in the presence of my most 
 worthy friend and learned instructor in that art,* with some degree of 
 awe. That excellent person's attainments in its mysteries are well 
 known, and justly appreciated. He is intimately acquainted with the 
 subject. The distrust of my own learning, therein, while addressing 
 him, is not lessened by my recollection of the praises lavished upon the 
 science by high authorities of past times. Lord Coke deemed it so de- 
 lightful a science, that its very name was derived, according to him, 
 from its pleasurable nature " Quia bene placitare omnibus placet." 
 Incapable of inventing a new pleasure, I would fain restore a lost one, 
 by bringing back Pleading to somewhat of its prestine state, when it 
 gave our ancestors such exquisite recreation. Certain it is that our 
 deviation from the old rules in this branch of the law, has been attended 
 with evil effects. Those rules, as Lord Mansfield once said, were 
 founded in reason and good sense; accuracy and justice was their 
 object, and in the details much of ingenuity and subtlety was displayed ; 
 but by degrees the good sense has disappeared, and the ingenuity and 
 subtlety have increased beyond measure, and been oftentimes misdi- 
 rected; nay, to such a pitch have the changes proceeded, that at last 
 subtlety has superseded sense; accuracy and justice are well nigh lost 
 sight of; and ingenuity is exhausted in devising pretexts for prolixity 
 and means of stratagem. In these really hurtful innovations the 
 courts of law have been the far too ready accomplices; and the legis- 
 lature has been a most willing instrument to increase the evil, by 
 sanctioning, almost as a matter of course, in each new act, the power 
 of pleading the general issue; so that to call the modern practice by 
 the name of special pleading, is really an abuse of terms. It can 
 only be restored to its ancient condition, and made deserving, if not of 
 Lord Coke's panegyric, yet of the more measured commendations of 
 Lord Mansfield, by reviewing the entire system as it at present stands. 
 My wish is, as far as possible, to revive the accuracy of the old plead- 
 ing, without its niceties and verbosity; while pains are taken to improve 
 it, where this can safely be done, by adapting it to the advanced state 
 of modern jurisprudence. 
 
 The precedents of the ancient pleaders, and the other rules recog- 
 nised in their times, furnish the most valuable materials for this reform; 
 and, indeed, it is chiefly from the science as they left it that the princi- 
 ples I am about to state are drawn. The first great rule of pleading 
 should be, to induce and compel the litigant parties to disclose fully 
 and distinctly the real nature of their respective contentions, whether 
 claim or defence, as early as possible. The second is. that no needless 
 
 * Sir N. C. Tindal.
 
 LAW REFORM. 569 
 
 impediment should be thrown in (he way of either party, in any stage 
 of the discussion within the court, whether plea, replication, or rejoin- 
 der, whereby he may be hindered to propound his case in point of fact, 
 or of law. In the third place, all needless repetitions, and generally all 
 prolixity should, as well as mere reasoning, which neither simply 
 affirms nor denies any proposition of fact or of law, be prevented; and 
 all repugnant or inconsistent pleas should be disallowed, as well as all 
 departure from ground once taken.* 
 
 1. That these were the principles on which the ancient pleaders 
 bottomed their system entirely, I will not affirm; but upon them it was 
 mainly built. And I regret to say, that the last century and a half has 
 witnessed great and prejudicial alterations in the original plan; so that 
 the record, in the great majority of cases, instead of exhibiting a plain 
 view of what each party is prepared to prove, contains an endless 
 multitude of words, from which, if the real matter in dispute can be 
 gathered at all, it is only by guess work, or by communications out of 
 the record relating to things of which it gives not even a hint. Let us 
 look into this a little more narrowly. The Count of a Declaration 
 should convey information as to the subject of the action; but it con- 
 veys no precise knowledge of the plaintiff's demand, or indeed of what 
 the suit is about. Take the instance of the common counts, as they 
 are justly termed, in assumpsit, being those constantly resorted to; and 
 take the most common of these, the count for money had and received. 
 I will take no advantage of the audience I speak before being unac- 
 quainted with legal niceties, in order to make merry with the venera- 
 ble formalities of the art. All lawyers know how easy it would be in 
 this place to raise a smile, at the least, by recounting the little fooleries 
 of our draftsmen; but I disdain it, and will treat the subject precisely 
 as if I were addressing professional men. The plaintiff declares that 
 the defendant, being indebted to him for so much money had and re- 
 ceived to the use of the said plaintiff', to wit, one thousand pounds, 
 undertook and faithfully promised to pay it, but broke his engagement; 
 and the count is thus framed, the self-same terms being invariably 
 used, whatever be the cause of action which can be brought into court 
 under this head. Now, observe how various the matters are which 
 may be all described by the foregoing words. In the first place, such 
 is the declaration for money paid by one individual to another, for the 
 use and benefit of the plaintiff this is what alone the words of the 
 count imply, but to express this they are rarely, indeed, made use of. 
 iJdly, The self-same terms are used on suing for money received on a 
 consideration that fails, and used in the same way to describe all the 
 endless variety of cases which can occur of such failure, as an estate 
 sold with a bad title, and a deposit paid; a horse sold with a concealed 
 nnsoundness, and so forth. 3dly, The same words are used when it 
 is wished to recover money paid under mistake of fact. <lthly, To 
 recover money paid by one person to a stakeholder, in consideration 
 
 * The valuable improvements introduced with so bold a hand, but so judiciously, 
 under the Act of I -.'!.'!, arc mainly fuumlrd upon these principles. 
 
 48*
 
 570 LAW REFORM. 
 
 of an illegal contract made with another person.* Sthly, Money paid 
 to revenue-officers for releasing the goods illegally detained, of the per- 
 son paying.t Gthly, To try the right to any office, instead of bringing 
 an assize. 1 Tthly, To try the liability of the landlord for rates levied 
 on his tenant. What information, then, does such a declaration give? 
 It is impossible, on reading this count, to say which of the seven causes 
 of action has arisen; and it is not merely those sev-en, for each one of 
 them has a vast number of varieties, which are declared on in the 
 same words. In actions of Trover, the case is even worse. Suppose 
 the case of a plaintiff suing for any chattel, as a gun, the declaration 
 will be such as may apply equally to at least eight different heads, under 
 each of which are many different causes of action. The words in all 
 would be the very same that the plaintiff was possessed of a gun, as of 
 his own proper goods and chattels; that he accidentally lost it; that the 
 defendant found it, and converted it to his use. Now this count de- 
 scribes only one case, that of a gun lost by its owner, and detained by 
 the finder. But it is employed to mean, 2dly, That the gun has been 
 taken by the defendant under pretence of some title, or in any way not 
 felonious. 3dly, That it was deposited with the defendant, who re- 
 fused to deliver it up. 4thly, That it was stopped in transitu, the 
 price not having been paid. 5thly, That the plaintiff is the assignee 
 of a bankrupt, and seeks to recover the gun, as having been sold after 
 the bankruptcy of the vendor. 6thly, That the plaintiff has been im- 
 properly made a bankrupt, and sues the assignees to try the bank- 
 ruptcy. 7thly, That his goods have been unlawfully taken, and he 
 sues to try the validity of an execution, on any of the various grounds 
 of fraud, &c., which impeach the validity of the process. Sthly, That 
 the gun has been misdelivered, or detained, by a warehouseman or 
 carrier. All those causes of action differ from each other as much as 
 different things can differ, and yet they are all stated in the declaration 
 the same way, and signified under the same form of words. 
 
 The pleadings in cases where it might be expected that the greatest 
 particularity would be given to the statement, actions upon torts to 
 the person, are somewhat, but for the most part, not remarkably more 
 definite and precise in their description. The declarations on the se- 
 duction of a wife, servant, or daughter, assault, and false imprison- 
 ment, are drawn so that you can say, no doubt, what the action is 
 about, which you hardly ever can in <?ases of Assurnpsit or Trover; 
 but the same form of words is used, whatever the particular shape of 
 the cause may be. Of the circumstances peculiar to the transaction, 
 the pleadings tell the defendant nothing they tell the counsel nothing 
 they tell the judge nothing. It may be said that the defendant 
 must know the cause of action himself; but that does not always fol- 
 low, especially if (which may be presumed barely possible, though it 
 seems never to be thought so) the allegations are groundless. There 
 is, however, one person who must know the cause of action, and that 
 
 * 1. B. and P. 3. Hi. 296. f 4 T. R. 485. 
 
 Str. 747. Carlh. 95. 1 T. R. 255.
 
 LAW REFORM. 571 
 
 is the plaintiff. He ought, for the satisfaction of all concerned, to 
 state it distinctly. The same may be said of the counts in trespass, 
 for taking goods.* In trespass quare chni.fHrn fregit, perhaps the 
 description of the wrong done is more specific. Hut it happens that 
 the circumstances here are of far less importance; damages are not in 
 question; a shilling or so is to be recovered, the object of the action 
 being almost always to try a right of property or an easement. In 
 all oilier cases of trespass, where a knowledge of the wrong suffered 
 is most material, the parties are left to fight, and the court to decide, 
 in the dark; but in the case I have just alluded to, where a know- 
 ledge of the circumstances in which the trespass was committed is 
 immaterial, everything is told them of which it is wholly unimportant 
 that they should be informed; in a cumbrous way, no doubt, and 
 with much fanciful statement, but still it is told. Actions for slander 
 and libel, for malicious prosecutions, and malicious arrest, or holding 
 to bail, with others on the case, are very particular, and form, cer- 
 tainly, an exception to the ordinary course of pleading; at least, as far 
 as the declaration goes; no further, as we shall presently see for I 
 now proceed to the next stage of the pleadings, namely, to the pleas 
 which the defendant puts upon the record in answer to the plaintiff's 
 complaints. 
 
 In this stage of the cause, we encounter the same evils, but in 
 greater abundance; for they affect those actions on the case where 
 the count is most precise. Generally speaking, it may be said, that if 
 the plaintiff tells us nothing in his declaration, the defendant, in return, 
 tells us as little in his plea; in that respect, at least, they are even. 
 This is, perhaps, a consequence of the former evil, but be that as it 
 may, it ought to be remedied. The plaintiff ought to tell the defend- 
 ant the real nature of his complaint, and the defendant ought to make 
 him equally acquainted with the nature of his answer. If this were 
 always done, perjury would not so often be committed; everything 
 intended to be proved would be stated on each side; and tho parties, 
 knowing the evidence on which the respective statements must be es- 
 tablished, would have an opportunity of examining into the character 
 of the witnesses, and of procuring the best evidence to elucidate the 
 point. At present, the mystery of pleading leaves them in doubt; and 
 the vague and indistinct statements on the record, unaccompanied by 
 other information, open a door to the entrance of falsehood in the wit- 
 nesses, far wider than any you could open, by enabling them to get 
 up proofs in answer to those expected from the opposite side. When- 
 ever the parties fight each other by trick, on the record in the first in- 
 stance, fencing to evade telling their grounds of contention, they re- 
 new the fight afterwards by perjury in court. I will now give the 
 House some instances of the vagueness of this part of pleading. 
 
 In the indebilatus aft.su mpxif, from which I took my first example, 
 the general issue is non (ts.sinnjisit. Now, under that plea no less 
 than eight different defences may be set up; as, for instance, a denial 
 
 These defects arc in a great measure remedied hy the late changes.
 
 572 LAW REFORM. 
 
 of the contract, payment, usury, gaming, infancy, coverture, accord 
 and satisfaction, release. All these defences are entirely different, 
 and yet they are all stated in the self-same words. So, too, in the 
 action of trover; take our former case of the gun: the defendant, 
 under the plea of "not guilty," may set up as a defence, that he is a 
 gamekeeper, and took it by virtue of the statute of Charles II;* or 
 that he had a lien upon it as a carrier for his general balance, and 
 had, therefore, a right to detain it; or a particular lien for work done 
 upon it; or that he had received it as a deposit, and was entitled to 
 keep it; or that he took it for toll,t or detained it till passage-money 
 due by its owner were paid;J or the reward due for saving it from 
 shipwreck were given. Any one of these defences may be con- 
 cealed under the plea of "not guilty," without the possibility of the 
 plaintiff discovering which it is that his adversary means to set up; 
 so that every body will, I think, agree with me, that if the count 
 teaches the court and opposite party little, the plea teaches them not 
 a whit more. || 
 
 It is of these things that Mr. Justice Blackstone must be speaking, 
 when he thus eloquently closes his account of special pleading and 
 actions (not otherwise remarkable for accuracy)!! with a panegyric 
 upon that perfection which it shares in his eyes with all the rest of 
 our system. " This care and circumspection in the law, in provid- 
 ing that no man's right shall be affected by any legal proceeding 
 without giving him previous notice, and yet that the debtor shall 
 not, by receiving such notice, take occasion to escape from justice; 
 in requiring that every complaint be accurately and precisely 
 ascertained in writing, and be as pointedly and exactly answered; 
 in clearly stating the question either of law or of fact; in deliberately 
 resolving the former after full argumentative discussion, and indis- 
 putably fixing the latter by a diligent and impartial trial; in correcting 
 such errors as may have arisen in either of those modes of decision, 
 from accident, mistake, or surprise; this anxiety to maintain and to 
 restore to every individual the enjoyment of his civil rights, without 
 entrenching upon those of any other individual in the nation this 
 parental solicitude, which pervades our whole legal constitution, is 
 the genuine offspring of that spirit of equal liberty which is the sin- 
 gular felicity of Englishmen."** 
 
 2. The inconsistency of many of our rules of pleading forms the 
 next head of complaint to which I shall direct your attention; and it 
 is just as manifest as the vagueness and indistinctness I have been 
 pointing out. Why are infancy and coverture to be given in evidence 
 under the general issue, while other defences of a similar description 
 
 * St. 22, 23 Car. II. Dawe and Walter in Bull. N. P. 48. 
 f Sir W. Jones, 240. J 2 Camp. G31. 
 
 Lord R. 393. 
 
 || The new rules remove these evils in a great measure. 
 
 Tf e. g. His giving as an example of Assumpsit, an undertaking without con- 
 sideration. 
 ** 3 Corn. 423.
 
 LAW REFORM. 573 
 
 must be pleaded specially, as the statute of limitations always, and 
 leave and license in trespass? If it is right that specific defences, of 
 v.'hich your general plea gives yonr opponent no notice, should be 
 couched under that plea, why should you be compelled to give notice 
 of other averments before being suffered to prove them? Why do 
 you, in one case, multiply pleas, which, in the other, your own prac- 
 tice declares to be unnecessary? One or other course, the vague or 
 the definite, the prolix or the concise, may be fitting; both cannot be 
 right. Nay, there is often an option given as to the same thing; in- 
 fancy, coverture, release, accord and satisfaction, and others, may either 
 be given under the general issue in assumpsit, or pleaded. Why, this 
 choice amounts to no rule at all! If a ground of defence is ever to be 
 pleaded specially, why not always?* 
 
 3. Akin to tins inconsistency of principle is the variety of repugnant 
 counts and pleas allowed in all cases whatever. Where there are ten 
 different ways of stating a defence, and all of them are employed, it is 
 hardly possible that any three of them can be true; at the same time 
 their variety tends to prevent both the opposite party and the court from 
 knowing the real question to be tried. Yet this practice is generally 
 resorted to, because neither party knows accurately what course his 
 opponent may take; each, therefore, throws his drag-net over the 
 whole ground, in hopes to avail himself of everything which cannot 
 escape through its meshes. Take the case of debt on bond. The 
 first plea in such an action, almost as a matter of course, is the general 
 issue, non estfactitm, whereby the defendant denies that it is his deed; 
 the second, as usually is, solvit ad diem he paid it on the day men- 
 tioned in the bond, a circumstance not very likely to happen, if it be 
 not his deed; the third is solvit post diem he paid it after the day; 
 a thing equally unlikely to happen, if it be not his bond, or if he paid 
 it when due; and a fourth often is, a general release. What can the 
 plaintiff learn from a statement in which the defendant first asserts 
 that he never executed the deed, and next that he not only executed 
 it, but has moreover paid it off? Where pleas are consistent with 
 each other, it may be well to let them be pleaded in unlimited abund- 
 ance: where they are not only not consistent, but absolutely destruc- 
 tive of each other, it would be a good rule to establish that such pleas 
 should not be put together upon the record, at least without some pre- 
 vious discussion, and leave obtained. The grounds of action are 
 often stated with almost as great inconsistency, almost always with 
 greater multiplicity in the declaration. I recollect that at York, many 
 years ago, it was my duty, as junior counsel, to open the pleadings in 
 an action brought upon a wager which had been laid upon the life of 
 the Krnperor Napoleon. I stated to the jury in the usual way, that 
 the defendant, in consideration of one hundred guineas, agreed to pay 
 the plaintiff a guinea a-day during the life of one Napoleon Buona- 
 parte, and so forth, alleging the breach. Thus far all was well, and 
 
 * These cvild arc also remedied; and so of the evils described in the subsequent
 
 574 LAW REFORM. 
 
 the audience were not disturbed; but there was not much gravity 
 among them when I went on to state the second count, averring ano- 
 ther wager on the life of "one other Napoleon Buonaparte;" and, 
 indeed, though one, in those days, was quite enough for the rest of the 
 world, two did not satisfy the pleader, who made mention of a third 
 and a fourth Napoleon. 
 
 I know that it is frequently said these allegations deceive nobody, 
 and their vagueness and repugnancy keep no one in the dark, for 
 each party contrives to have a good guess of what his adversary 
 means. That this is not the case in many instances I know; that it 
 takes place more frequently than might be expected, I am ready to 
 admit. Bat what vindication is this of the system? If anything like 
 precise information is obtained in such cases as I have described, it is 
 most assuredly not from the record, but in spite of the record; it is by 
 travelling out of it by seeking elsewhere for what the record does 
 not give, or for correcting the false impression which it conveys; con- 
 sequently, this defence of pleading is the very humble one, that it is 
 useless, and, were it not for the cost, would be harmless. 
 
 4. Before the statute of the 4th of Anne, no man was allowed to 
 plead double; the plaintiff might have as many ways of stating his 
 case as he pleased, but to each count the defendant could only give 
 one answer. By that statute he may, with leave of the court, plead 
 two or more distinct matters. Though that leave was formerly 
 granted or refused at the discretion of the court, it is now regularly 
 given as a matter of course. There is, however, a fee to be paid to 
 the office for it, and also a fee to counsel for signing the rule to obtain 
 it, which, of course, implies a charge by the attorney also. I think 
 every practitioner is fully aware of the consequences. Beside the 
 expense, the utterly needless expense, the mischief of it is great and 
 undeniable. I believe in my conscience, that many an attorney's 
 clerk, who afterwards proceeds to still greater frauds, begins his 
 career of crime by stopping this fee to counsel on its way. It is not 
 necessary that the barrister should sign his name; and a knowledge 
 of that fact among attorneys' clerks and barristers' clerks, seduces into 
 a course of petty embezzlement, which leads to larger peculations in 
 the long run, and ends in all the dishonesty which marks the life of 
 the disreputable practitioner. According to the principles before laid 
 down, such rules as this, to plead double, and all others of the kind, 
 ought at once to be abolished, and the parties allowed to do, without 
 any application, or rather supposed application, to the judge, and 
 without any expense, what they thus obtain for the mere payment of 
 money. But to proceed: though the defendant may plend, the 
 plaintiff cannot reply many matters. For instance, in indebitatus 
 assumpsit, if the defendant pleads, first, that he never made any pro- 
 mise, and next, that ho was an infant when he made the promise, the 
 plaintiff must either admit the infancy, and set up a subsequent pro- 
 mise, or deny the infancy altogether, and re-affirm the original pro- 
 mise; for he cannot both deny the infancy and set up a subsequent 
 promise. Now, I will ask the House, why, if the defendant may
 
 LAW REFORM. 575 
 
 plead several matters, the plaintiff should not reply several matters? 
 There must be some limit, I allow, set to the replication, otherwise, 
 at each stage of the pleading, there would be a multiplication of 
 issues, like the puzzle of the nails in a horse-shoe; but, surely, there 
 can be no harm in allowing each separate ground of defence to be 
 met both by a denial and an answer; giving the plaintiff a general 
 replication to make the defendant prove his plea, and one special re- 
 plication: I mean, as long as you allow the defendant to multiply, 
 without restraint, his grounds of defence; for the power of pleading 
 repugnant pleas being restricted, there will be the less prolixity occa- 
 sioned by enlarging the power of replying. 
 
 5. The restriction upon demurrer, or pleading to raise an issue in 
 law, appears still less founded in principle. By demurring, a party is 
 obliged to confess the facts to be true as stated by the opposite party, 
 and confine himself to a denial that, by law, those facts warrant the 
 inference against him to raise which they are stated. If I am alleged 
 to have made a particular promise, I may deny that I made it, which 
 would raise a direct issue on the fact: or I may say that, though I did 
 make it, such a promise is not binding in law, which raises an issue 
 on the law. These two denials, however, cannot both be given; I 
 must take my choice, either to admit the law or the fact. How is 
 this in common life? If I am charged with anything wrong, as using 
 certain blameable expressions, I may deny the words altogether, but 
 may add, "admit, for argument sake, I did utter them, they were 
 wholly harmless wholly free from the meaning affixed to them." 
 In truth, men are demurring all day long, when they are conflicting 
 or disputing with one another, and no one ever dreamt of tying down 
 his antagonist to the admission of the fact, because he had argued 
 against the inference. If anything can make the rule more objection- 
 able, it is the gross inconsistency which it exhibits to the last rule I 
 mentioned, the permission given to a defendant to raise as many re- 
 pugnant issues of fact as he pleases. Why should a party be allowed 
 to say, " In point of fact, I deny the promise but if I made it, six 
 years have elapsed or I made it under age," and be prohibited from 
 saying " In point of fact, I deny the promise; but, if I made it, there 
 was nothing binding in point of law?" The two defences, as far as 
 their duplicity goes, are precisely similar; and as it must be allowed 
 that, before double pleading was introduced, the restriction upon de- 
 murring was consistent with the general principles of the system, so, 
 if repugnant pleas were forbidden, the objection, in respect of con- 
 sistency, to a demurrer admitting the facts pleaded, would be removed. 
 On other grounds, however, it would be still quite wrong. I admit 
 that part of the mischief occasioned by the rule may be remedied 
 after verdict, the objection being on the record. But beside that this 
 remedy cannot, in every case, be applied, there lias been the delay 
 and expense, to say nothing of the absurdity of a trial of facts, which, 
 if proved, amount to nothing. Why should not the court first deter- 
 mine the disputed law, and then, only if it becomes necessary, try the
 
 576 LAW REFORM. 
 
 truth of the facts? In equity pleading it is so. Why not in law 
 pleading too? 
 
 6. A very great amendment of the law would be, to permit all 
 formal errors to be amended, even at the very last stage of the cause. 
 No one should be turned round on a mere variance; no one should 
 be defeated on a mere verbal mistake, as it was my lot to be lately, in 
 an indictment, the history of which will aptly enough introduce this 
 head of remark. It was a prosecution for perjury: the jury was 
 sworn, the case was opened, witnesses were examined, and docu- 
 ments read, when a variance was discovered between the affidavit, on 
 which the perjury was assigned, and the copy of it which formed part 
 of the record: in the one the word "grandmother" was used: in the 
 record the syllable " grand" was omitted, and only the two last sylla- 
 bles " mother" were inserted. This was, of course, fatal to the in- 
 dictment. There can be no doubt that the perjury, which consisted 
 in the denial of a payment, was equally committed, whether that sup- 
 posed payment was made to the mother or the grandmother; yet, 
 owing to this utterly unimportant error, all the trouble of the court, and 
 all the expense of the prosecutor, were rendered perfectly useless, and 
 the ends of public justice frustrated. In ninety-nine cases out of every 
 hundred indeed, I might say, in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases 
 out of every thousand in which parties are turned round upon vari- 
 ances, the materiality is not greater than in that which I have just 
 mentioned to the House. The improvement which I would suggest 
 is to allow nobody to be turned round upon a variance, except at the 
 discretion of the judge. Where it is clear that the record by its vari- 
 ance from the evidence has deceived the party, then the discrepancy 
 ought to be fatal; but because this may happen once in a thousand 
 times, ought we to legislate upon the exception, and introduce a gene- 
 ral system of quirks and niceties upon sorry trifles the greatest op- 
 probrium of the law? Furthermore, I would allow no failure of a 
 case from the want of a sufficient stamp being affixed to any instru- 
 ment used in evidence. In a case which occurred not long since, my 
 Lord Dudley was turned round, because it was said there were a few 
 words more in the instrument than we had counted, and the stamp 
 was some half-crown below the amount required. At the trial of the 
 cause, it was not disputed by us, that the words were more in number 
 than the stamp covered; we took for granted that our adversary had 
 reckoned right, and we did not require the process of addition to be 
 gone through in court; it was afterwards found out that the defend- 
 ant had counted the words wrong, and that they fell short of the 
 number mentioned in the Stamp Act. The plaintiff, in consequence, 
 got a rule for a new trial, and soon after he had a verdict. But sup- 
 pose we had been wrong and our adversary right, what difference 
 would that have made in the justice of the cause, which was truly an 
 undefended one? I would allow the judge to inflict a penalty of 20 
 of 50 if necessary, to protect the revenue, instead of 10 for the 
 want of a stamp; but I would not allow the party to be turned round,
 
 LAW REFORM. 577 
 
 and to lose his trial, because he had got a wrong stamp, or no stamp 
 at all, affixed to his agreement or deed. 
 
 Let not the House suppose that grievances such as I have been de- 
 scribing to flow naturally from the present system, are imaginary and 
 theoretical; I can assure the House, from my own daily experience, 
 that they are not: they produce constantly a cost or a delay, or both, 
 amounting to the positive denial of justice. To give an illustration of 
 some of the parts of the system in its workings, I shall read the letter 
 which I hold in my hand, from an eminent practitioner in the law. 
 The widow of a Welsh clergyman was obliged to bring an action upon 
 a mortgage-deed for the payment of the mortgage-money and inte- 
 rest, and for performance of the covenants in the deed. She might 
 have foreclosed by a proceeding in equity; but preferring the delays 
 of the King's Bench to those of the Chancery, she brought an action 
 of debt of the simplest possible kind, both in its nature, and in the 
 form of the proceedings; and the House shall now hear from her re- 
 spectable solicitor himself, what was the progress and termination of 
 that action: " The defendant was a member of Parliament, and some 
 delay, as is usual with such defendants" (I beg pardon, sir, of 
 course, I am not answerable for the terms of the letter) " took place 
 in enforcing an appearance. When the declaration was delivered, tho 
 defendant demanded oyer of the bond, and that obtained, made as 
 many applications as the judge would allow for further time to plead. 
 At the expiration of this period, he pleaded 1st, Non est fact inn 
 2d, Solvit ad diem 3d, Solvit ante diem* 4th, Solvit post diem 
 5th, Performances. It is needless to add, all these pleas were pure 
 legal fictions. The plaintiffs, in their replication, took issue on such 
 pleas as concluded to the contrary, and assigned breaches of the con- 
 dition, according to the statute. The breaches assigned were, non- 
 payment of the principal non-payment of the interest and non-per- 
 formance of the covenants of the mortgage-deed. The defendant, for 
 the purpose of splitting the second into two issues, and thereby creating 
 the delay of an issue in law, to be tried before the court in banco, and 
 an issue in fact, to be afterwards tried at Nisi Prius before a jury, 
 demurred to the last assignment of breaches a sham demurrer for 
 delay. The plaintiffs joined in demurrer, and made up and delivered 
 the paper-book and demurrer-book. The defendant, in order to entitle 
 
 * Had the plaintiff's pleader chose, the law enahled him to demur to this plea, 
 (but it would have increased the delay and served the defendant's purpose.) The 
 ground of the doctrine, that paying before the debt falls due is no answer to the 
 action seems not very intelligible, hut it is now settled law. The reason assigned 
 (in Cass v. Tryon though there are cases co/ro, see Cro. Eliz. 143, Dyer, 22'J, 
 and also 11 Anne, c. lf>, 12) is, that if the verdict on that issue goes for the plain- 
 tiff, it by no means follows that he has a right to recover, for he may have been 
 paid at or after the day. Hut so it may he said of a plea of infancy or, indeed, of 
 siilvit nd diem itself (or though the verdict negative that plea, nun coruitnt thai there 
 may not have been duress or a release. The true test of a plea (or an affirmative 
 issue tendered at any stage of the pleadings) plainly is this if its being found for 
 him who pleads it decides the matter in his favour, no new fact being averred on 
 the other side, it is good if not, bad. 
 VOL. I. 49
 
 578 LAW REFORM. 
 
 himself to bring a writ of error for delay, without giving bail, then 
 suffered judgment to go by default, for not returning the paper and 
 demurrer-book. The consequence of this was, that all the pleas, re- 
 plications, rejoinders, and demurrer, became useless, and were struck 
 out of the record; and the plaintiffs had to execute a writ of inquiry 
 before the Chief Justice, under the statute of William III, to assess 
 damages on the breaches suggested. But these proceedings had an- 
 swered the purpose of harassing the poor defendant with useless and 
 expensive litigation, swelling the pleadings from five folios to one 
 hundred and eighteen; and they had already accomplished much de- 
 lay, having occupied four terms: the bill was filed in Trinity Term, 
 the pleas and replication in Michaelmas Term, the demurrer and 
 joinder in Hilary Terra, and the final judgment was obtained in Easter 
 Term. The defendant then brought a writ of error, without the slight- 
 est pretence of actual error; and that proceeding, of course, delayed 
 the plaintiffs four terms longer. All this was necessarily attended 
 with expense, grievous to a poor person, as the party in this case was. 
 The costs of the judgment were taxed at SO, 4s., and the costs in 
 error at 19, 10s., making together 9.9 14s. for the costs, and two 
 years for the delay in an undefended action, in which the length of 
 the declaration was five folios! Comment on such a case would be 
 a waste of words." It would indeed! But if it be wanted, Black- 
 stone shall be the commentator. " So tender and circumspect," saith 
 he, " is the law of England in providing that no man's right shall be 
 affected by any legal proceeding; in requiring that every complaint 
 be accurately and precisely ascertained in writing, and be as pointedly 
 and exactly answered; in clearly stating the law and the fact; in de- 
 liberately resolving the former and indisputably fixing the latter by a 
 diligent trial; in correcting such errors as may have arisen in either 
 decision, and in finally enforcing the judgment, when nothing can be 
 alleged to impeach it! So anxious it is to maintain and restore to 
 every individual the enjoyment of his civil rights, without intrenching 
 upon these of any other individual in the nation, so parentally soli- 
 citous is our whole legal constitution to preserve that spirit of equal 
 liberty, which is the singular felicity of the British nation."* 
 
 I must now tell the House, that besides the 99, 145. taxed costs, 
 this poor widow had to pay 30 for extra costs, which she never 
 received a shilling of from the defendant, and which she had to 
 defray after he had handed his share of the costs over to the plain- 
 tiff's attorney. In prosecuting an undefended cause she paid this 
 sum, and if it had so chanced that the defendant, instead of being 
 merely a distressed man (for I happen to know the gentleman in 
 question, and that though a distressed, lie is not an oppressive man); 
 if he had been such a character as was once known in the northern 
 provinces, and as we have had represented on the scene pertina- 
 cious, litigious, grasping, oppressive, with a long purse to back him 
 in defending acts of injustice and cruelty he would have resisted at 
 
 * See page 572, supra, where the same passage is cited.
 
 LAW REFORM. 579 
 
 every stage of the action by counsel and witnesses; he would have 
 had the demurrer argued before the court; he would have tried the 
 issue at Nisi Prius; he would have carried his writ of error through 
 the Exchequer Chamber into the House of Lords; and then the 
 extra costs, instead of thirty pounds, would have amounted to I dare 
 not say what sum, knowing that costs to the amount of hundreds 
 have been incurred- to recover a debt of twenty pounds. "So tender 
 is the law of England in providing that no man's right should be 
 affected by any legal proceeding so parental its solicitude to main- 
 tain and restore to every individual the enjoyment of his civil rights, 
 without intrenching upon those of any other person whatsoever!" 
 
 Sir, after Mr. Justice Blackstone had written his beautiful, and, 
 in part, profound Commentaries, there occurred a case, which he 
 published himself in his Reports, and which must, I conclude, have 
 happened after the panegyrics were composed. I marvel much, 
 however, that when a subsequent edition of his Commentaries ap- 
 peared, he did not correct the error into which he must then have 
 been convinced that he had been betrayed, by his excessive admira- 
 tion for the forms and technicalities of our common law. The case, 
 as reported by himself, was, in substance, this: A gentleman of the 
 name of Robinson, in Yorkshire, was minded to try the resources of 
 the law in an action of trespass against some poor men, who lived 
 near him. In the course of it, reference was made to the Master, to 
 report by whose fault the pleadings in the action had extended to a 
 most enormous and unprecedented length. The Master reported, 
 that in the declaration there were five counts; that twenty-seven 
 several pleas of justification were pleaded by the defendants, which, 
 with replications, traverses, new assignments, and other monuments 
 of pleading, amounted at length to a paper book of near two thou- 
 sand sheets. He was of opinion that the fault lay principally in the 
 length and intricacy of the declaration, the action being only brought 
 to try whether the freeholders and copyholders of the manor, whereof 
 Robinson was lord, were entitled to common in a ground called the 
 Inclosnre. He likewise reported that the declaration was so catching, 
 by ringing changes upon the several defendants, and the several 
 names of the ground, that it was necessary for the defendants to 
 guard every loophole; which made their pleas so various and so long, 
 especially as Mr. Robinson had declared that he had drawn the 
 declaration in this manner "on purpose to catch the defendants, and 
 that ho would scourge them with a rod of iron." The court was 
 very indignant at this abuse of the technicalities of the law, and the 
 book says that Mr. Robinson appeared in propria persona, to show 
 cause against this report, " no other counsel caring to be employed 
 for him." The court ordered Mr. Sergeant Hewitt and Mr. \Vinn to 
 settle an issue, which they did in a quarter of an hour, and in tho 
 space of a quarter sheet of paper, instead of two thousand folios. 
 Talk of scourging with a rod of iron! Why should he think of it? 
 The lash of parchment, which is applied to all suitors in our courts
 
 580 LAW REFORM. 
 
 of law that flapper, which keeps them awake to the course of jus- 
 tice by the expense and anxiety it inflicts that truly parental cor- 
 rector of human errors, manufactured in the engines of practice and 
 pleading, which, pretending to enlighten, serve only to keep the 
 court and the suitors in the dark as to what they are conflicting 
 about, and oftentimes teach them nothing certain, but that they are 
 ruined, and cannot tell how: this parchment lash was a far more 
 safe as well as powerful scourge for the rich and crafty lawyer, and 
 a far more deadly one for his poor and simple antagonists, than any 
 rod of iron which he could have had forged for his own use in all 
 Colebrookdale! 
 
 v. The parties being now supposed at issue by the result of their 
 pleadings, the facts in dispute are to be tried by a jury through the 
 medium of evidence, and the comments of the counsel and judge. 
 Before I enter, therefore, on the head of Evidence or Proceedings, or 
 Trial generally, the House will permit me to say a few words upon 
 the subject of Juries, the rather because this venerable institution has, 
 I lament to say, been of late years attacked by some of the most 
 distinguished legal reformers. Speaking from experience, and ex- 
 perience alone, as a practical lawyer, I must aver that I consider the 
 method of juries a most wholesome, wise, and almost perfect inven- 
 tion, for the purposes of judicial inquiry. In the first place, it controls 
 the judge, who might, not only in political cases, have a prejudice 
 against one party, or a leaning towards another, but might also, in 
 cases not avowedly political, where some cord of political feeling is 
 unexpectedly struck, if left supreme, show a bias respecting suitors, 
 or what is as detrimental to justice, their counsel or attorneys. In 
 the second place, it supplies that knowlege of the world, and that 
 sympathy with its tastes and feelings, which judges seldom possess, 
 and which, from their habits and station in society, it is not decent 
 that they should possess, in a large measure, upon all subjects. In 
 the third place, what individual can so well weigh conflicting evi- 
 dence, as twelve men indifferently chosen from the middle classes of 
 the community, of various habits, characters, prejudices, and ability? 
 The number and variety of the persons are eminently calculated to 
 secure a sound conclusion upon the opposing evidence of witnesses 
 or of circumstances. Lastly, what individual can so well assess the 
 amount of damages which a plaintiff ought to recover for an injury 
 he has received? How can a judge decide half so well as an intelli- 
 gent jury, whether he should recover as a compensation for an 
 assault, fifty pounds, or a hundred pounds damages? or for the 
 seduction of his wife or daughter, fifteen hundred, or two thousand, 
 or five thousand pounds damages? The system is above all praise 
 it looks well in theory, and works well in practice; it wants only one 
 thing to render it perfect namely, that it should be applied to those 
 cases from which the practice in equity has excluded it; and that 
 improvement would be best effected by drawing back to it the cases 
 which the courts of equity have taken from the common law, and
 
 LAW REFORM. 581 
 
 which they constantly evince their incapicity to deal with, by sending 
 issues to be tried whenever any difficulty occurs.* 
 
 I shall not press this subject further, for I begin to feel that I shall 
 be exhausted with the labour 1 have undertaken, and I fear that your 
 patience may be exhausted wilh my strength. I will therefore pro- 
 ceed to the great subject of Evidence; and, first of all, we are met by 
 the question Ought the testimony of the parties to be excluded? 
 The strong opinion expressed by some great authorities on this head 
 requires that, before entering on the Law of Evidence, we should 
 touch the fundamental rule which draws so broad a line between 
 parties and witnesses. It is clear that the law on this head re- 
 quires revising; it is not so clear that the reform will be best accom- 
 plished by receiving every one's testimony in his own cause. The 
 friend of exclusion proceeds upon the supposition that the situation of 
 a party differs wholly from that of another person; whereas it only 
 differs in the degree of the bias arising out of interest, from the situa- 
 tion of many who are every day allowed to depose. He also main- 
 tains that it is dangerous to receive the party's evidence, because of 
 the temptation afforded to perjury. That there is much in this argu- 
 ment, I admit; but, speaking from my own observation, I should say 
 that there is more risk of rash swearing, than of actual perjury of 
 the party becoming zealous and obstinate, and seeing things in false 
 colours, or shutting his eyes to the truth, and recollecting imperfectly, 
 or not at all, when his passions are roused by litigation. I shall not 
 easily forget a case in which a gentleman of large fortune appeared 
 before an able arbitrator, now filling an eminent judicial place, on 
 some dispute of his own, arising out of an election. It was my lot to 
 cross-examine him. I had got a great number of letters in a pile 
 under my hand, but concealed from him by a desk. lie was very 
 eager to be heard in his own cause. I put the question to him 
 " Did you never say so and so?" His answer was distinct and ready 
 "Never." I repeated the question in various forms, and with more 
 particularity, and he repeated his answer, till he had denied most 
 pointedly all he had ever written on the matter in controversy. This 
 passed before the rule of evidence laid down by the judges in the 
 Queen's case; consequently I could examine him without putting the 
 letters into his hand. I then removed the desk, and said "Do you 
 see what is now under my hand?" pointing to about fifty of his letters. 
 ' I advise you to pause before you repeat your answer to the general 
 question, whether or not all you have sworn is correct." He rejected 
 my advice, and not without indignation. Now, thoso letters of his 
 contained matter in direct contradiction to all he had sworn. I do 
 not say that he perjured himself far from it. I do not believe that 
 he intentionally swore what was false; he only forgot what he had 
 
 * It is fitting that we speak with reverence even of the unfounded doubts of so 
 preat a man and profound a jurisconsult as Mr. Hentham. Ho was, Ix-yond all 
 dispute, the first who taught men to examine the foundations of our I.ejj.il Institu- 
 tions, and the ahuscs that have grown up with them. Sir S. Homilly wus the first 
 to question them in Parliament. 
 
 49"
 
 582 LAW REFORM. 
 
 written some time before. Nevertheless, he had committed himself, 
 and was in my client's power. I said " My advice is, that you pay 
 the whole demand before to-morrow." This only increased his 
 anger. He " scorned the offer and the imputation." Turning to his 
 solicitor, 1 asked if he concurred in his client's view of my proposi- 
 tion? " Very far from it," was the answer. The meeting broke up, 
 the arbitration terminated, and the money was paid the next morning. 
 Now, had this trial occurred in an open court, the gentleman would 
 have been ruined for ever; he would have had no opportunity of ex- 
 plaining, nay, all explanation would have been useless; if he had 
 escaped prosecution, he would have been suspected of perjury ever 
 after, when all that he was guilty of was too much eagerness, too 
 much impetuosity, and a little wrong-headedness, arising from confi- 
 dence in his own cause, and a desire to defeat his adversary. But 
 this anecdote is fruitful in matter of reflection. On the one hand, we 
 see the risks of admitting impure or uncertain evidence, and the pro- 
 bability of receiving wrong impressions respecting a witness's bias 
 while undergoing the question; on the other hand, we perceive that, 
 to a certain degree, the same consequences flow from our present 
 practice of allowing such evidence in some cases, and not in all. Our 
 system is clearly inconsistent in this particular. At least we ought to 
 be uniform in our practice. Why refuse to allow a party in a cause 
 to be examined before a jury, when you allow him to swear in his 
 own behalf in your Courts of Equity, in your Ecclesiastical Courts, 
 and even in the mass of business decided by Common Law Judges 
 on affidavit? Why is the rule reversed on passing from one side of 
 Westminster-hall to the other, as if the laws of our nature had been 
 changed during the transit, so that no party being ever allowed before 
 a jury to utter a syllable in his own cause, in all cases before an 
 Equity Judge, parties are fully sworn to the merits of their own cause? 
 If it be said that there is no cross-examination here, I answer, that 
 this is a very good argument to show the inefficacy of equity pro- 
 ceedings for extracting truth from defendants, but no reason for fol- 
 lowing a different rule in the two jurisdictions. Indeed, the incon- 
 sistencies of our system in this respect almost pass comprehension. 
 All pleas at law are pleaded without any restriction upon their false- 
 hood; in equity the defendant answers under the sanction of an oath. 
 But equity is as inconsistent with itself as it is different from common 
 law; for the plaintiff may aver as freely as he pleases, without any 
 oath or any risk at all. When an inquiry is instituted into these 
 things, I do venture to hope that something will be done to diminish 
 the number of matters decided on affidavit. This is, indeed, a fruitful 
 parent of fraud and perjury, and not only a great departure from the 
 principle which excludes the testimonies of parties, but an abuse of 
 all principle; for he who would allow such testimony, under due re- 
 straints, may very naturally argue that suffering men to swear for 
 themselves, without being exposed to cross-examination, must lead to 
 endless equivocation, suppression of truth, and all the moral guilt, 
 without the danger, of actual perjury. If it be right to exclude the
 
 LAW REFORM. 583 
 
 parties from giving evidence in their own belialf in one case, it is not 
 right to admit them to give evidence in others; and more especially it 
 is absurd to admit them where they have the power of deceiving with 
 impunity, and exclude them where they would swear under checks 
 and restraints.* 
 
 1. The first matter that presents itself to my attention, when I come 
 to the subject of Evidence, is the great question (intimately connected 
 with what I have been discussing,) how far interest should disqualify 
 a witness. The ancient doctrine upon this point has, of late years, 
 been so much restricted by our courts of law, so little is left of the prin- 
 ciple on which this objection to competency rested, that, for my own 
 part, I will confess I cannot see any adequate reason why all witnesses 
 of good fame, that is, all not convicted of an infamous offence, should 
 not be admitted, leaving the question of their credibility, and the 
 weight of their testimony, to the consideration of the jury. In the 
 case of " Bent v. Baker," an action against one underwriter of a policy, 
 the court held that another underwriter of the same policy was a com- 
 petent witness for the defendant, because the verdict could not be 
 evidence in an action against himself, although it was clear that the 
 first action must, in fact, decide both claims. After that decision, it 
 cannot be said that there is any rational ground for exclusion on account 
 of interest in the event, any more than interest in the question. The 
 rule thus established has ever since been followed; and now, in all 
 cases, a person is competent, whatever bias he may have from interest, 
 provided the verdict cannot be given for or against him in another 
 cause; the bias under which he swears being only a circumstance that 
 goes to his credit. After this it is in vain to exclude any evidence upon 
 the ground of interest in the event, and the principle should be ex- 
 tended to all interest, direct or indirect. For let the House look at 
 the inconsistency of the present system. If I have the most distant 
 interest, even the interest of a shilling, in reversion on an estate of 
 50,000 a-year, I am incompetent to give evidence on any point affect- 
 ing that estate; but suppose I have a father ninety years of age, lunatic, 
 bedridden, at the point of death, and quite incapable of doing any legal 
 act whatever that he is in possession of an estate in fee-simple that 
 I expect to be his heir or that he had formerly made a valid will in 
 my favour, so that nothing can prevent me from succeeding the moment 
 he dies, I may be a witness to give him the estate: I am competent to 
 swear into the possession of my father a property of 50,000 a-year, 
 to which, in the common course of events, I must myself succeed in a 
 few weeks. But pecuniary interest is not the only feeling that biases 
 the mind of a witness; and yet any one may swear for a parent, a 
 brother, a sister, a child, on questions most nearly affecting the peace, 
 and honour, and happiness of the whole family. I therefore think 
 that a line ought to be drawn, not between one sort of interest and 
 another, but between competency and credit; and that all should be 
 admitted to give evidence, leaving it to the jury to determine what 
 
 * This defect remains as before.
 
 584 LAW REFORM. 
 
 dependence may be placed upon their testimony. This is rendered the 
 more fit by the nature of the shifts resorted to for the purpose of re- 
 storing the competency of interested witnesses; I allude, of course, to 
 that notable expedient, a release of all actions or causes of action. 
 When a witness has an interest, if he is deprived of it by a release, 
 there is no objection to his competency. Evidence is thus often cooked 
 up for the court, nay, in the court, while the witness is in the box, 
 which, according to the existing rules, is not admissible, without such 
 a process. Now, what is the real effect of the release on the mind of 
 the witness? Just nothing for if he be an honourable man, he gives 
 it up the moment he leaves the box, and while swearing he knows that 
 he is to do so; so that the operation which has been performed upon 
 him adds a pound to the year's revenue, nothing to the credit of his 
 testimony.* 
 
 2. With regard to written evidence, I must say that it appears to 
 be no less capriciously required than dispensed with. I think as highly 
 as any lawyer ever did of the Statute of Frauds; I would go the full 
 length of the learned judge who said that every line in it was worthy 
 a subsidy; and it is, therefore, that I could wish a few lines might be 
 added, so as to increase the number of subsidies at which I may value 
 it. First, I would extend the number of cases in which written evi- 
 dence is exacted. The French law requires that all contracts for sums 
 above 150 francs should be reduced into writing, and even authen- 
 ticated by notarial forms. I would adopt some such extension of our 
 statute; and as almost all men are able to write at the present day, I 
 do not think this would occasion any inconvenience. But then the 
 outlets should be stopped up, by which the exigency of the statute is 
 escaped. I think, as far as I can discern from reading the French 
 Code Civile, and the Conferences upon it (a wonderful monument of 
 Napoleon's genius, as well as of the talents of his counsellors), that no 
 part performance takes a case out of the French enactment. With us, 
 the things are so numerous which take transactions out of the Statute 
 of Frauds, that the memorandum in writing is only in a small propor- 
 tion of cases required. Hence, among other consequences, much sub- 
 tlety of construction often needlessly extended by jurisconsult exer- 
 citations, as the distinction between crops growing and severed, or a 
 right and an easement, in determining what is an interest in land.t A 
 judicious enactment, restoring the force of the statute in these, particu- 
 lars, as well as extending it to other cases, would be highly beneficial 
 in preventing fraud, perjury, and litigation: and could offer no impedi- 
 ment to commerce, further than the beneficial one of narrowing the 
 credit given by small tradesmen. 
 
 3. The rule by which a man's books are let in, or excluded, after 
 his decease, is also, in my mind, extremely defective. They are evi- 
 
 * This is still unaltered. 
 
 f Thus a license for any number of years to stack coals on a close is not within 
 the statute; such n complete occupation of every inch of the surface, and exclusive 
 of all other use of it, even by way of easement, is not held to be an interest in land. 
 There is a case to this effect in Sayer's Reports.
 
 LAW REFORM. 5S5 
 
 dencc, if he has entered the receipt of sums by which he makes him- 
 self chargeable to any amount. If he only debits himself with the 
 receipt of 5, which very likely he may have received, he makes his 
 books evidence for his representatives, who may gain 500 to which 
 he never was entitled. The ground on which they ought to be ex- 
 cluded is, the general probability of their having been made for the 
 purpose of creating evidence; but that probability is never weighed at 
 all in the particular instance. We had much discussion of this mat- 
 ter in the case of Barker v. Wray, before Lord Eldon, who appeared 
 exceedingly to question the soundness of the received rule; this at 
 least was certainly the impression of the bar. Would it not be better 
 to abolish the legal presumption, exceedingly ill-founded in fact, which 
 lets in all such documents generally, and as generally excludes all 
 others, and to substitute in its place the rule, that any deceased per- 
 son's books or memorandums may be received, provided it appear 
 that they were not prepared with a view of making evidence for his 
 successors, but plainly alio intuitu? Observe, too, that in one case 
 we admit, without any qualification, the books of a predecessor, in his 
 successor's behalf. I mean entries made by a deceased rector or vicar 
 of the receipt of tithes, which are always admitted as evidence for 
 succeeding incumbents, because he is supposed to have had no inte- 
 rest in misstating the fact as if the clergy were always entirely free 
 from the influence of a corporation spirit. 
 
 4. Than the rules for the examination of witnesses, I am of opinion 
 that nothing can be better, generally speaking. Every facility is 
 afforded to counsel for extracting the truth. Upon this important 
 head, therefore, my remarks will be few. There is a want of uni- 
 formity in the practice of the judges towards counsel engaged in ex- 
 amination. Some will not allow them to cross-examine a witness 
 they have called themselves, even though he is stated when produced 
 to be a hostile one; and others will not allow them to put a leading 
 question to an adversary's witness, in cross-examination, if he be really 
 friendly to them. The sound rule seems to be that it depends on the 
 connections and demeanour of the witness, whether he shall be re- 
 garded as the witness of the party producing him or no. Again, cer- 
 tain tests are excluded, by which the capacity and the credit of a 
 witness may best be tried. If I wish to put a witness's memory to 
 the test, I am not allowed to examine him as to the contents of a 
 letter or other paper which he has written. I must put the document 
 into his hands before I ask him any questions upon it; though by so 
 doing he at once becomes acquainted with its contents, and so defeats 
 the object of my inquiry. That question was raised and decided in 
 the Queen's case, after solemn argument, and I humbly venture to 
 think, upon a wrong ground, namely, that the writing is the best evi- 
 dence and ought to be produced, though it is plain that the object hero 
 is by no means to prove its contents. Neither am I, in like manner, 
 allowed to apply the test to his veracity; and yet how can a hotter 
 means be found of sifting a person's credit, supposing his memory to
 
 586 LAW REFORM. 
 
 be good, than examining him to the contents of a letter, written by 
 him, and which he believes to be lost? 
 
 There is a test, excluded in cases of libel, of which I shall say the 
 less, that I brought in a bill some years ago to remedy this defect. 
 The main question in any prosecution for libel being the innocence or 
 guilt of the publication, is it not preposterous to keep the proof of its 
 truth or falsehood from the view of the court? Almost everything 
 else is admitted which can throw any light upon the motives of the 
 party; but that is carefully shut out which is the best test by far of 
 their nature, though certainly only an unilateral test, inasmuch as 
 there must always be guilt, if there is falsehood, though truth does 
 not of necessity prove innocence. Nay, the defendant cannot even 
 be allowed to urge the truth in mitigation of punishment after convic- 
 tion; as if there were the same criminality in publishing that a man 
 had been tried and sentenced to the galleys for forgery, who was sen- 
 tenced, and that an innocent individual had been sent thither, who 
 never had been tried or even suspected of the offence a case which 
 lately occurred within my own experience. 
 
 Another test, of a still more important kind, is excluded by a very 
 injudicious refinement of our law, its repugnance to try collateral 
 issues. A foul charge is brouaht against a man, of rape, or some yet 
 more horrid offence, and the liberty of cross-examining the prosecutor 
 or his witness, whom I may assume to be his fellow conspirator, is, 
 in a most important particular, restrained. The defendant's counsel 
 may address the witness thus " Were you not examined on different 
 occasions, at four or five several sessions, when you sought, by your 
 testimony, to convict as many different individuals of an offence 
 similar to that which you now accuse this prisoner of committing; 
 and were not all those persons whom you so persecuted acquitted? 
 Did not the court reprimand you for prevarication, nay, order a bill 
 for perjury to be preferred against you?" True, the counsel is at 
 liberty to put questions like these; but what, if the witness answers, 
 as in all probability he will, be the fact how it may " No?" The 
 prisoner cannot give evidence in contradiction of the wretch's asser- 
 tion, at least the practice goes the full length of this. But at any rate 
 it is quite clear law that, if the witness is asked, " Mave you not your- 
 self been guilty, repeatedly, of this very crime which you now wish 
 to fasten on the prisoner?" and he should reply, as doubtless he will, 
 " No," the prisoner is not allowed to adduce evidence of the fact, 
 because, forsooth, the court cannot try "collateral issues," unless the 
 record of a conviction is produced. Nay, I have known judges, 
 though on this they differ, who would not suffer the prosecutrix, in a 
 case of rape, to be asked if she had not led an unchaste life before, 
 because a common whore may be ravished, as if the probability of 
 the event were the same in all cases, and were nothing to the ques- 
 tion under consideration. 
 
 5. Furthermore, I ask, why should any class of persons be ex- 
 cluded from giving evidence in criminal cases on account of their
 
 LAW REFORM. 587 
 
 religious opinions, notwithstanding their testimony is admissible in 
 cases of a civil nature? A Quaker is precluded by his religion from 
 taking an oath; his affirmation is received in civil, but rejected in 
 criminal cases. I was once employed, with two of my learned friends, 
 to defend a man, prosecuted by the Attorney-General, for a mis- 
 demeanour. We had a very worthy and learned physician, by 
 whose testimony we expected to rebut the charge; but it turned out, 
 when he came to the witness-box, that he was a Quaker; of course 
 he would not swear, and equally of course he could not affirm. Our 
 client, also of course, was convicted. This is bad every way; it is 
 bad, for that it suffers guilt to escape; it is bad, for that it suffers inno- 
 cence to be destroyed. The Quakers, it is true, desire not to see a 
 change, because, being averse to capital punishments, they do not 
 wish their testimony to be used in capital cases; but they forget that 
 their evidence may be the only means of saving an innocent person 
 from the very punishment of death to which they object, and that, 
 rather than help to hang the guilty, because they dislike the punish- 
 ment, they are allowing the innocent to suffer by the self-same punish- 
 ment. There is, in my opinion, no reason for excluding any indivi- 
 dual, be he of what religion, sect, or persuasion he may, from giving 
 testimony in cases of every kind, provided he believes in the exist- 
 ence of a God, and a state of future rewards and punishments; and is 
 not openly infamous by sentence of a court.* 
 
 6. I have already, in speaking of competence of evidence, said 
 somewhat of presumptions; but there is a class of presumptions 
 which has found its way into the practice of all courts, and ought, in 
 my opinion, to be carefully excluded; I mean presumptions affecting 
 the weight of evidence, tending to withdraw the attention of the court 
 from the facts of the particular case, and to produce a decision founded 
 upon some kind of average taken from other cases, and because taken 
 at a former period, of course excluding the case in hand. It has thus 
 become almost a rule of law, that perjury can only be proved by two 
 witnesses, or, perhaps, by one witness and the defendant's handwri- 
 ting. Why may not other circumstances exist, quite as sufficient to 
 cast the balance against the oath of the accused, and give credit to his 
 accuser? This presumption goes in favour of the defendant; but there 
 is another, by which he is often, I am convinced, improperly con- 
 victed; I mean the rule that an accomplice is entitled to credit in all 
 particulars, provided he be confirmed in some. I once, many years 
 ago, endeavoured to contend for a limitation of this rule, when the late 
 Chief Baron Thompson presided in the Special Commission at York. 
 I maintained that it was necessary to give the confirmation upon some 
 fact which could not be true consistently with the defendant's guilt- 
 lessness. It is certain, however, that the law knows no such qualifi- 
 cation, and the judge whom I have named, than whom no greater 
 criminal lawyer, or more humane and upright man ever existed, 
 
 * This disability of Quakers and other sectaries has since been removed by 
 statute.
 
 588 LAW REFORM. 
 
 ruled, with his reverend brethren, against me; and seventeen men 
 suffered death, some of whom were convicted on the testimony of ac- 
 complices. I do not exactly recollect, whether the confirmation was 
 as slight as would barely satisfy the exigency of the rule; but I am 
 very sure, that instances frequently occur in which the story of an ac- 
 complice leads to conviction, while all the witnesses of credit swear 
 only to slight or wholly equivocal circumstances. 
 
 7. It is a somewhat similar anomaly in the rules of evidence, that 
 the court always takes upon itself to construe written instruments, of 
 whatever kind, as if their sense must be matter of law, while the 
 weight of all parol evidence is as invariably left to the jury. Why 
 should the assistance of the jury be wholly rejected in this province? 
 It is another and a kindred rule, that where, on the face of a writing, 
 there is an apparent, or as the lawyers term it, a patent ambiguity, no 
 other evidence can be allowed to explain it; where the ambiguity is 
 latent, or raised by extrinsic evidence, there, other evidence may be 
 adduced to remove it. This principle has been laid down by high legal 
 authority; for it is first clearly stated by Lord Chancellor Bacon but 
 I am much disposed to question its correctness. Coupled with the 
 other rule, which precludes the jury from construing written evidence, 
 it tends greatly to narrow and darken the path to correct decision. 
 
 This naturally leads us to examine a little how the courts have 
 exercised this, which they have thus claimed as their exclusive pro- 
 vince; and we are thus conducted to a variety of other presumptions 
 respecting evidence, which have been received and acted upon, so as 
 now to have become rules of interpretation, and parcel of the law of 
 the land. With much unfeigned respect for the authority of the great 
 names whose sanction this large branch of our jurisprudence has en- 
 joyed, and with much admiration of the ingenuity and astuteness 
 which it has called forth, I must be permitted to say, that, considering 
 the paramount object of all law its use as a rule of life for the people, 
 no part of our system is less entitled to praise. 
 
 It should seem that one obvious principle of construction would be 
 to take words in their plain ordinary sense, and always to construe 
 them alike, in whatever instrument they might be used. Only let 
 lawyers consider what a mass of technical niceties and real difficulties 
 this would get rid of; only let them reflect on the consequences that 
 do result from following the very opposite course. Why should the 
 same words be differently construed in a will and in a deed? Why 
 do words, which in one species of instrument give an estate in fee, 
 convey only a life-interest in the other? Why should the last words 
 employed in a will overrule the earlier ones, and not in a deed, on the 
 vain refinement that those express a man's latest intention as if the 
 whole taken together were not his latter will, as much as the whole, 
 taken together, are his deed? But even in wills, where we affect most 
 to follow the intent, so nice is the construction, so technical has it be- 
 come through many decisions of the courts, and so imperfect conse- 
 quently is the knowledge generally possessed by people on the sub- 
 ject, that a man cannot well be more in the dark on the subject of the
 
 LAW REFORM. 5S9 
 
 distribution of his property after his will has taken effect, by his being 
 naturally dead, than he is at the very moment of making it. In fact, 
 most men, while disposing, or fancying they dispose of their property, 
 do not, in the least, know what they are doing. An unlearned indi- 
 vidual thinks he is giving a life-estate when he is giving an estate in 
 fee, or in tail, and vice versa. The testator, J. Williams, whose will 
 gave rise to the case of Perrin v. Jl/ake, where the rule in Shelley's 
 case was extended, little dreamt that the first taker was to have the 
 absolute control over the property, when he directed him to take an 
 estate for his life and no longer. Observe,! am far from complaining 
 of that any more than of Shelley's case. The refinement which unites 
 the particular estate with the remainder, in the issue of the first taker, 
 is little more than an application of the simplest rule in law, that an 
 estate to a man and his heirs (or, which is the same thing, to a man for 
 life, with remainder to his heirs) is a fee simple. But the law should 
 prevent the niceties, occasioned by following out its principles, from 
 misleading those who are ignorant of those principles. By freeing it 
 from such technicalities you would, I think, rather elevate the study 
 of jurisprudence and raise its professors; I am certain you would 
 benefit all the rest of the King's subjects.* 
 
 It is hardly to be conceived how much, as matters at present stand, 
 a man who makes his will is in the dark as to its final operation. 
 Thus the creditor who appoints his debtor executor of his will, is 
 considered as having granted a release of the debt: what ordinary 
 person would think he had done so? The very same reasons that 
 induced him to lend the money, and to count up its faithful repay- 
 ment, friendship, blood, confidence, naturally lead him to appoint the 
 borrower his executor. I have known it happen in this way fifty 
 times in the country; yet the debt is gone at law; and equity will 
 only relieve by holding the executor a trustee, where there are other 
 debts and no free fund to pay them, or some words showing an in- 
 tention to revive the debt words not very likely to be used by a 
 person who never dreamt of its being extinguished. Then suppose 
 a man has made two wills of the same date, and cancels one of them; 
 it is held that, in certain circumstances, lie cancels the other. If one 
 of the wills is at his banker's, the law raises a strong presumption 
 that by cancelling his own copy he intended to cancel that, when the 
 probability is that he cancels because he is aware there is a duplicate, 
 and doc , not wish to have the first lying about his house. When 
 both copies are in his own possession, the law does not entertain so 
 strong a suspicion of the intention to annul the will, by cancelling 
 one; still, however, the presumption is raised. An individual may 
 be thus held to have died intestate, who never entertained any in- 
 tention of the kind; and his property may pass away from those near 
 relatives or favoured friends to whom he destined it, and be given to 
 his hundred and fiftieth cousin, or, for default of legitimate relatives, 
 may be vested in the crown. But it is not in this way only that a 
 
 * Some remedy has been afforded for this evil by the \Vills Act. 
 VOL. I. 50
 
 590 LAW REFORM. 
 
 person may revoke his will without knowing it, and die intestate 
 while he thinks he is disposing of his property. He may happen to 
 do so by the very act he performed with a view of confirming his 
 testament and establishing his purpose. A recovery suffered, unless 
 the will be republished, destroys it entirely, upon the nicety, quite 
 consistent, I admit, with strict legal principle, that a new estate is 
 taken back, different from that which was in the testator when he 
 devised.* This happens frequently to frustrate the plain intent of 
 parties. Lately in the Court of King's Bench, we had an instance 
 of large property in this immediate neighbourhood, going anywhere 
 rather than according to its owner's intention, because a recovery had 
 been suffered; and a recovery, suffered for the express purpose of 
 confirming the will, deprived Lord Erskine of a considerable estate 
 in Derbyshire. So a conveyance, which divests an estate though but 
 for an instant, to serve a use, with the intention of immediately taking 
 back the former uses, which are accordingly taken back, totally 
 revokes the will made before. t Nay, no less a judge than Lord 
 Hardwicke has expressly laid it down, that where a man, supposing 
 he had only an estate tail on which a devise could not operate, suffers 
 a recovery for the express purpose of taking back a fee in order that 
 his will may be good, it is thereby revoked.! The most notable part 
 of these excessive refinements is, that they all proceed upon the act 
 being evidence of a presumed intention, when no man can doubt 
 that either there was no such intention, or one of the very opposite 
 description. Thus, if I devise lands to a person, and afterwards for 
 the same reason of favour towards him, by way of making him more 
 secure, give him a lease in the same, to commence after my death, 
 he being perhaps tenant for years under me at the time, the will is 
 gone. It thus happens that, in the very act of his life, in which it 
 is most important that a man should see clearly what he is about, 
 and most likely that he should have no professional assistance, he is 
 often wholly in the dark as to the effect of what he is doing. 
 
 Were I in want of further illustration for this matter, I might go at 
 once to the doctrine of powers, and show how the thing intended to 
 be permitted is often prevented, and vice versa, by the view which 
 courts have taken of what is and what is not a good execution, and 
 which renders it unsafe to give an opinion upon any power, the very 
 words of which have not received a judicial construction. I might 
 go to the still greater niceties in the rules respecting the construction 
 of contingent and executory uses, a chapter of our law, signalized by 
 the utmost learning and ingenuity of those who have treated it. I 
 might indeed at once ask what foundation in reason or even in analogy, 
 
 * These things are now altered by the Wills Act. 
 
 f Goodtitle v. Otway, 7 T. R. 399. 
 
 ^ Sparrow v. Hardcastle, ib. in note. Nor is it necessary to change the estate, 
 in order to operate a revocation, e. g. a feoffment by tenant in fee to another to his 
 use and that of his heirs, 3 Ves. G, and an ineffectual recovery by tenant for^life 
 (reversion in fee, disposed of by will). 2 Ves. jun. 430. 
 
 Cro. Jac. 40, 5 Yes. jun. 650.
 
 LAW REFORM. 591 
 
 there is for holding that a purpose should be accomplished, by way of 
 executory devise, which cannot be effected by way of contingent re- 
 mainder; as the mounting a fee upon a fee, or directing a contingent 
 use to spring and enure without any particular estate to support it; 
 if, indeed, I ought not rather to ask why there should be any neces- 
 sity in either case for a freehold interest to support an after-taken con- 
 tingent estate, and why there should be any horror of mounting a fee 
 upon a fee, an idea so familiar to the feodists in the sister kingdom, 
 that their strict settlements (always made by deed, for they, having 
 their niceties like ourselves, though of another sort, allow no devise of 
 real property at all) consist of a succession of fees, under restraints 
 specifically prescribed as to alienation and incumbrances. But I will 
 satisfy myself with what has been said on this head, and suggest, as 
 the obvious corollary, for remedy of the great bulk of the mischief I 
 complain of, the laying down by the legislature of certain formulas, 
 couched in plain language, and of an import recognized by written 
 law. You give this help to justices, to prevent convictions and orders 
 being set aside for technical error. Why not give it to men often less 
 learned than they, for disposing of their property necessarily without 
 professional assistance? Why not say, that whoever would give a 
 fee, should use these words; an estate for life these; that whoever 
 would clothe the takers of that estate with certain powers, may do 
 it thus and so forth not stating that such are the only words which 
 shall effect the same purpose, but that, at any rate, those shall* 
 
 By such a plan, and by retrenching some refinements which the 
 fund is ample enough to spare, in rules of construction, I know that 
 much curious learning will be brushed away; but I also know that 
 the law will be rendered accessible to those whose rights it is to 
 govern, and that the lay people will gain far more than the learned 
 lose. Thus much for amending the rules of construction. But for 
 the general establishment of sound rules of evidence, I should recom- 
 mend, first of all, an introduction of one rule as to the manner of 
 examining witnesses, instead of trying issues of fact in one court by 
 written depositions, and in another by viva vocc examination (whereby 
 the same will may be, and sometimes has been, supported in Doctors' 
 Commons, upon personalty, which a Court of Nisi Prius afterwards 
 set aside altogether), in one court by affidavit, by sworn answers to 
 unsworn bills, by yet more clumsy and ineffectual examination, on 
 written interrogatories previously drawn; in another only by parole 
 examination. I would have all matter of fact, wheresoever disputed, 
 tried by a jury. For sifting the truth by such a trial, I would admit 
 all records between the parties or their privies, and all instruments 
 and writings of every kind of the parties against whom they are used; 
 so much the law now permits; but I would let in whatever docu- 
 ments, written by persons deceased, appear plainly to have been 
 made without any view to manufacturing evidence. In a word, cx- 
 
 * Thn Wills Art haa removed some of tlio defects here stated. It is to be re- 
 gretted that formula* were not added to it.
 
 592 LAW REFORM. 
 
 eluding inferior evidence where better cnn be obtained, and, there- 
 fore, all hearsay absolutely, I would admit whatever could not be 
 deemed to have been done with a view to the fabrication of proof, by 
 the knowledge that such would be receivable. Allowing objections 
 from interest in the event, as well as from interest in the question, to 
 weigh only in estimating a witness's credit, I would make no man 
 incompetent to give evidence in any cause, civil or criminal, who was 
 Hot either an unbeliever in God and a future state, or convicted of 
 some infamous offence. In examining the witnesses, I would suffer 
 a person to be contradicted as to matters directly affecting his credit, 
 and on which he had been questioned;* and in the event of a witness 
 turning out hostile to the party calling him, there can be no sound 
 reason why, subject to the judge's discretion, he should not be treated 
 as adverse, and even contradicted, without which the latitude at pre- 
 sent given by some judges, only amounts to a power of putting lead- 
 ing questions. Of nonsuits for variance, and other technical defects, I 
 have already spoken. 
 
 The law respecting Limitations comes as an appendix to the chapter 
 of evidence. No branch of our jurisprudence is more important, and 
 hardly any more demands revision. Why should there be no statu- 
 tory limitation of a bond or other specialty?! For want of it the 
 courts have adopted a sort of rule, founded upon presumption of pay- 
 ment, that where the instrument is twenty, or even eighteen years 
 old, sometimes less (so accurate is the rule), and no interest has been 
 paid, or other acknowledgment made of the subsistence of the debt, 
 it may be assumed to be satisfied; that the instrument is cancelled 
 they cannot presume, for there it is, seal and all, staring them in the 
 face; but there being no receipt or discharge, and the bond being in 
 the obligee's hand, is surely quite enough to rebut any presumption of 
 payment so that the courts have really made a law, though a bad 
 and uncertain one, to meet the case. It would be far better to fix at 
 once a period often years, after which no action should be maintain- 
 able upon specialties. 
 
 But even in cases where we have a statute of limitation, there is 
 hardly any vestige left of the relief which it was intended to afford, 
 owing to the labours of the courts in finding means of evading its 
 beneficial operation. It was plainly meant as an act of peace and 
 quiet. My noble friend J who presides in the Court of Common Pleas 
 of the sister kingdom, once said, with his usual felicity of expression, 
 that time is armed with his scythe to destroy the evidence on which 
 titles rest, but the lawgiver makes him move with healing on his 
 wings to stay the ravages of his weapon. To thwart the designs of 
 the legislature, the courts have been setting up their rules of presump- 
 tion. At one time they seemed really to hold that anything, even the 
 simplest expression, would take a debt out of the statute of limitations; 
 
 * This is really only a nominal relaxation of the rule in Spencely v. de Willd; 
 the spirit of that rule is preserved, for the credit of the witness is not a collateral 
 issue. 7 East, 108. 
 
 | This is now provided by the late acts of 1833. \ Lord Plunkett.
 
 LAW REFORM. 593 
 
 for instance, if a defendant had said " I have paid the debt," he was 
 taken as admitting it, unless he could prove payment. Again, if he 
 said, " I owe you nothing," the assertion was taken as an acknowledg- 
 ment; and he was also required to prove an acquittance of the plain- 
 tiff's claim. The reply " Six years have expired" was equally dan- 
 gerous, though it was only saying out of court what the statute itself 
 allowed him to say in pleading. In fact, so deeply did Lord Erskine 
 feel the difficulties which encompassed the defendant under these 
 efforts of judicial acuteness, that he said the only safe course a defend- 
 ant could take when his adversary sent a fishing witness, was to 
 knock him down; for though he might be proceeded against for the 
 assault, he retained the benefit of the statute, as regarded the debt. 
 Although of late the current of decisions (as it is pleasantly termed) 
 has set in more in an opposite direction, there is still abundant room 
 for a provision to give this wholesome law effect. The means are 
 obvious; let nothing but an acknowledgment in writing take any debt 
 out of the statute. In a word, prop the main pillar of security against 
 stale and unjust demands, the statute of limitations, by a beam from 
 that other bulwark against perjury, the statute of frauds.* 
 
 The law of Limitation seems to require alteration, not additional 
 enforcement, in the case of Real Actions. The period for a Writ of 
 Right is thirty or sixty years, according as the demandant counts on 
 his own or his ancestor's seisin. But in a Formedon, which is often 
 termed, as in truth it is, the tenant in tail's writ of right, it is no more 
 than twenty years. The difference surely is founded on no sound 
 reason, and ought to be done away, by a law fixing thirty years as 
 the period of limitation in all real actions, and removing tho important 
 difference in construction which Sir T. Plorncr's late decision has 
 raised from the different expressions used in the statue of Henry VIII 
 and James I, so as, in many cases of property under lease, to deprive 
 the defendant of his remedy altogether.! 
 
 lint in one case there is no limitation at all; I mean that of church 
 rights. Why should there not lie? I admit that the same period ought 
 not to be adopted respecting the church as the nit Hum tcmpiix act 
 prescribes for the Crown; but I confess I do not see the necessity of 
 leaving the law as it now stands, and exempting ecclesiastical claims 
 from all restriction whatever. What is the consequence? It was 
 admirably pointed out by a most learned judge, \ in one of the ablest 
 tracts ever written, no less distinguished by closeness of legal argu- 
 ment, than by that pure and concise diction peculiar to him. A 
 composition real may have been made between a clergyman and bis 
 parishioners, at any time since the restraining statute of Elizabeth; for 
 iiOO years the land may have been possessed by the parson, and yet 
 if the original agreement should have been lost, as it is almost sure to 
 
 * This salutary alteration was effected liy Lord Tenterden's Act, passed in ls-J!>. 
 
 | Tlit; whole law of Heal Actions has been changed and simplified by the labours 
 of tin? Keal 1'roperty Commissioners, and the Acts of lH.'J. r >; and the changes hero 
 proposed as to limitation of such actions luivu been introduced. 
 
 i Mr. Baron Wood. 
 
 50*
 
 594 LAW REFORM. 
 
 be amongst farmers, though no tithe has been taken during all that 
 time, there would be no bar by limitation, in the event of the clergy- 
 man claiming the tithes; so that it could not be ascertained by whom 
 the land had been given, and the land could not be restored for want 
 of claimants; indeed there are cases in which the clergyman has thus 
 retained the land originally given for the composition, and has his 
 tithes paid to boot. I would say, then, with Mr. Burke, take not 
 away from the church its power of being useful, but deprive her only 
 of that which makes her odious. The reign of Richard I is the period 
 up to which all rights as against churchmen must be carried; nay even 
 as against lay impropriators, to whose case none of the reasons for 
 favouring ecclesiastical claims apply. Yet that period becomes daily 
 more remote and more inapproachable by evidence. Does not every 
 principle of justice require, that lay titl-'S to tithes should be put on 
 the footing of other property; and that for church rights, properly so 
 called, a period of limitation should be affixed, longer than for other 
 rights, to prevent collusion between incumbents and tithe payers, and 
 combined, if necessary, with the number of two or three vacancies?* 
 vi. The course of my observations has now brought me to the 
 Trial of the Issues, raised by the Pleadings, on the Process, and 
 investigated by means of the Evidence. On this branch of the subject 
 I have little to offer. The principles are plain which should guide 
 us, and they are not so widely departed from in practice as to require 
 any great change. Each party should be allowed fully to propound 
 his case in the way most advantageous to himself. All new matter 
 advanced by the one should receive an answer from the other; each 
 should be encouraged and not hindered to bring forward whatever 
 evidence may tend to throw light upon the matter in question. Our 
 practice, at least in modem times, departs a good deal from these 
 principles, but is very easily restored to them. We compel the plain- 
 tiff to explain his case, and comment upon it before his witnesses are 
 examined: unless his adversary produces evidence, he has no means 
 of observing, even upon his own case, after he has proved, or at- 
 tempted to prove it. Hence his opening must be often very general, 
 for fear of his evidence falling short; and hence he often labours 
 under a prejudice from that cautions and imperfect opening, which a 
 little explanation might remove. Counsel are every day obliged to 
 state their cases in the dark; experience teaches us in some degree 
 the difference between what is set down and what will be actually 
 sworn; so that a young advocate will give a very different statement 
 on the same brief from a practised one, no great compliment to our 
 method of trying causes, in which as little as possible should depend 
 on the forensic skill of practitioners; but even the most experienced 
 are constantly deceived by their instructions; the cause may change 
 its aspect, especially in the cross-examination of our witnesses; and 
 they have no opportunity of correcting the error and preventing the 
 
 * This important reform has also been made by Lord Tenterden's second Act of 
 1832.
 
 LAW REFORM. 595 
 
 result from turning on a matter wholly foreign to its merits, the 
 discretion of those who prepared the brief unless the other party 
 gives evidence. Now, for this very reason, and to gain by his 
 adversary's failure (a failure not necessarily connected with merits,) 
 he will avoid doing so; he will also avoid it generally, to prevent his 
 own remarks from being answered. Hence much important evidence 
 is every day shut out, by this play of counsel to avoid giving a reply, 
 which the plaintiff should have, whether the defendant calls witnesses 
 or no. Here, as in other things, the system is far from uniform: in 
 Appeal cases, both before the Mouse of Lords and (he Privy Council, 
 there is a reply, as of course; and in the committees of this House, 
 as well as in trials for high treason, there is an opportunity given to 
 each party of commenting on his case, after it has been presented in 
 evidence, by a summing up. The practice is the same in the Eccle- 
 siastical Courts, and the Delegates. I understand that a summing 
 up, or speaking to evidence, as they call it, is allowed in Ireland; in 
 Scotland both prosecutor and prisoner are heard on the evidence 
 after it has been adduced, the want of an explanatory opening being 
 in part supplied by the debate upon the relevancy of the indictment. 
 I believe in civil cases they have adopted our modern practice, in- 
 stead of the older method to which the Irish adhere. 
 
 Before leaving this head I may be allowed to suggest an amend- 
 ment of a minor kind, but of very considerable importance. It would 
 be advantageous to have a sworn short-hand writer in every Nisi 
 Prius case. Those who attend our courts of Nisi Prius are aware how 
 sorely the Judge is hampered, and his attention diverted from more 
 important considerations, by being obliged to take such full notes of the 
 evidence. This practice is necessary, because the only record of the 
 facts of the case is to be found in his notes. Now, the judge is often 
 a slow writer, and, in this respect, men differ so much, that one judge 
 will try three or four causes while another will dispose of only one, 
 and one will impede a cross-examination so as to render it quite in- 
 effectual, while another will never interrupt it at all. It happens like- 
 wise that a judge mny be an incorrect taker of notes, wliirh not un fre- 
 quently leads him to an incorrect decision, at least to an incorrect report 
 of the case when a new trial is moved for. No judges ever write 
 shorthand, and for no other reason, than that their notes may have to 
 be read by another, if the record comes not out of their own court. 
 My honourable friend, the member for Durham,* whose suggestions 
 have ever been found most beneficial to judicial proceedings, introduced, 
 the great improvement of shorthand writers in our committees, and 
 abridged the delay and expense of those inquiries incalculably. I 
 would h;ive them, if introduced into our courts, take full notes of the 
 proceedings; at the same time I would not hold their notes as conclu- 
 sive; they might be subject to the correction of the judge on any impor- 
 tant matter misapprehended; for he, of course, would take his own 
 note, but only of the principal and the more delicate things, likely to 
 
 * Mr. Michael Angrlo Taylor.
 
 596 LAW REFORM. 
 
 be misunderstood by one ignorant of law. He would soon find where 
 he could trust the shorthand writer and where not; he would be relieved 
 from much labour merely mechanical, and left free to regard all the 
 bearings of the case, and to take a commanding view of it, so as to 
 bring on a more speedy decision of its merits. 
 
 But, sir, I cannot leave the subject of trial without saying somewhat 
 of the general principles regulating Real Actions, sinning as they do 
 against all sense and justice. In other cases the plaintiff begins the 
 attack, and on him it rests to prove his case, to stand or fall by his 
 proof; but, in a Writ of Right, the person in possession fifty-nine 
 years and three-quarters must, according to the existing law, expose 
 his title, pedigree, and all, to his opponent, who can lie by and pick 
 holes to his own advantage, without being even asked on what ground 
 he relies, until his adversary has proved his case; a great benefit, 
 whatever be his ground; for the jury must give the property to some- 
 body, and it is likely that the party in possession having failed, the 
 claimant may get in. In ejectment, though the plaintiff may have 
 held possession for almost twenty years previous to the cause of action 
 rising, yet, if he has been out of possession for one single day, it is 
 incumbent on him to prove his title, and the defendant is not bound 
 to budge if he fail. In this case, too, the plaintiff must pay costs if 
 defeated, even though the person he attacks has been but a day in 
 possession, and cannot have been in above twenty years. In the real 
 action, where the possession may have been near sixty years, the 
 claimant pays not one shilling of costs, for making you prove your 
 title, though he fail entirely in impeaching it.* 
 
 Nor let it be imagined that these evils never occur; I have seen them 
 fully exemplified twice within the last eighteen months. We had a 
 writ of right at York in the spring of 1S26, to try the title to many 
 thousands a-year. On the eve of the trial we, for the demandant, dis- 
 covered a defect in the proof of taking the esplees, and were forced to 
 withdraw the record. It came down for trial at the next assizes, when 
 we were astonished to find the defect we had reckoned upon in the 
 tenant's title removed, and on asking where the document produced 
 had been discovered, we were told that it had come to light on search- 
 ing the Bishop's chancery, at Salisbury, some weeks after the spring 
 assizes, in which he would have been defeated had we gone to trial. 
 Only see by what an accident the possession of this large estate was 
 saved ! Our client was defeated on the freehold, as not being the eldest 
 son; he afterwards brought a plaint, in the nature of a real action, in 
 the court of Lambeth, as youngest son, for the copyhold, which was 
 descendible by Borough English. He again failed; but, of course, he 
 paid costs in neither suit. 
 
 vii. The trial being had and the judgment pronounced, there fol- 
 lows the execution; and in this most important branch of the law, 
 which may be emphatically called the law of debtor and creditor, I 
 feel perfectly justified in declaring our system to be the very worst in 
 
 * All Real Actions, except Quare Impcdit, are now abolished, by the Act of 1833.
 
 LAW REFORM. 597 
 
 Europe, departing the most widely from (lie principles which ought to 
 regulate a creditor's recourse against his debtor. Those principles are 
 abundantly plain. In proportion as, before the debt has been proved, 
 the person and property of the party charged should be free from all 
 process not necessary to prevent evasion; so, after judgment, ought the 
 utmost latitude be given to obtain satisfaction from all the defendant's 
 property whatever laud, goods, money, and debts for to himself 
 they no longer belong. To allow any distinction between one kind 
 of property and another seems the height of injustice. No consistent 
 reasoner can maintain the propriety of exempting land more than chat- 
 tels; no honest debtor can claim the privilege which he waived when 
 he contracted the debt. In the case of a person deceased, all kinds of 
 debts and all creditors should come in equally upon an insolvent estate; 
 and preference only be given to a mortgage or other lien. The chattel 
 itself sued for should be returned, and damages only given where it 
 has been lost. The person of the debtor should not be taken in execu- 
 tion, unless there is either a wilful concealment of property, or there 
 has been criminal or grossly imprudent conduct in contracting the debt; 
 for the two objects should be kept carefully distinct, of what is done 
 to satisfy the creditor, and what is done to punish the debtor. Lastly, 
 the former should obtain his satisfaction as speedily as may be, and as 
 conveniently for the latter as is consistent with the creditor's security. 
 How widely does our law depart from these obvious and natural prin- 
 ciples, by dint of refinements, blunders, and openly-avowed injustice!* 
 First of all, there are only two actions for recovery of chattels, in 
 which we are expected to give the thing specifically sued for, Reple- 
 vin and Detinue; yet in neither can the party compel a delivery in 
 kind; and detinue is besides useless, because the defendant may wage 
 Ins law. In all others the claim is avowedly for damages only. A 
 horse is taken from me, and I sue for it; yet I only obtain damages 
 for its detention: but suppose I want the horse, and not the money, 
 the law will not aid me; nay, it will give me not a farthing in consi- 
 deration of being thus compelled to part with it; I only receive what 
 it would fetch in the market if I chose to sell it. Equity and common 
 law differ widely here; the former always performs in specie; the 
 latter looks to damages only, unless indeed where it is inconsistent 
 with itself, as in the summary process to make parties perform awards, 
 and attorneys and other officers of the courts deliver up deeds, and 
 pay moneys by means of attachment. But all these defects are com- 
 paratively trifling, and rather absurd in principle, than of extensive 
 injury in practice. Wlnt is quite substantial, and of hourly occur- 
 rence, is the frustration of a creditor after he has obtained judgment, 
 and t;ikon out execution. His debtor has a landed estate; if it be 
 copyhold, the creditor cannot touch it in any way whatever; if it ho 
 freehold, he may take half by ek'git, and receive the rents and profits, 
 
 * Tim now Hill proceeds wholly upon thesp principles, pivrs the creditor the full 
 remedy, and only restrains or routines the debtor whoa ho either refuses to do what 
 is in his power, lias been guilty of fraud, or is ahout to abscond.
 
 598 LAW REFORM. 
 
 but no more, in the lifetime of his debtor. The debt for which he has 
 received judgment may be such that the rent of the land will not even 
 keep down the interest; still he can take nothing more; he cannot turn 
 the land into money; so that, when a man sues for a thing detained 
 unlawfully, you give him money which he does not ask; and when 
 he asks for money by suing for a debt, you give him land which he 
 does not want. But if his debtor dies before judgment can be ob- 
 tained, unless the debt is on bond, he has no remedy at all against any 
 kind of real property of any tenure; nay, though his money, borrowed 
 on note or bill, has been laid out in buying land, the debtor's heir takes 
 that land wholly discharged of the debt. 
 
 But not only is land thus sacred from all effectual process of credit- 
 ors, unless the debtor be a trader; the great bulk of most men's per- 
 sonal property is equally beyond reach of (he law. Stock in the public 
 funds debts due in any manner of way nay, bank notes, and even 
 money, are alike protected. I may owe a hundred thousand pounds 
 in any way, and judgment may have passed against me over and over 
 again; if I have privilege of Parliament, live in a furnished house or 
 hotel, and use hired carriages and horses, I may have an income 
 from stock or money lent, of twenty thousand a-year, and defy the 
 utmost efforts of the law; or if I have not privilege, I may live abroad, 
 or within the rules, (as some actually do), and laugh at all the courts 
 and all the creditors in the country. So absurd are our rules in this 
 respect, that if I have borrowed a thousand pounds, and the creditor 
 has obtained judgment, the sheriff's officer appointed to levy upon my 
 personalty, may come into my room and take a table or a desk; but 
 if he sees the identical thousand pounds lying there, he must leave it 
 he touches it at his peril: "For this quaint reason," says Lord 
 Mansfield, "because money cannot be sold, and you are required by 
 the writ to take your debt out of the produce of goods sold." It is 
 true that great judge, whose merits as a lawyer were never underrated, 
 except by persons jealous of his superior fame, or ignorant of the law, 
 (among whom was a writer much admired in his day, but of very 
 questionable purity, and certainly no lawyer), leaned to a contrary 
 construction of the creditor's powers, and might have somewhat irre- 
 gularly introduced it. But Lord Ellcnborough afterwards denounced 
 such attempts as perilous innovations on the fundamental principles of 
 our jurisprudence;* and the law is now settled on this point. t 
 
 And here, sir, let me step aside to ask who is the innovator he 
 who would adhere to such rules, in violation of the manifest intent 
 and spirit of our old law, or he who would readjust them so as to 
 give it effect? In ancient times there were none of those masses of 
 property in existence, which are exempt from legal process. When 
 the law, therefore, said " Let a man's goods and chattels be answer- 
 able for his debts," it meant to include his whole personalty at the 
 least. Things have now changed in the progress of society; trade 
 has grown up; credit has followed in its train; money, formerly used 
 
 * Knight v. Criddle, 9 East, 48. | All these anomalies are removed.
 
 LAW REFORM. 599 
 
 as counters, has become abundant; paper currency and the funds 
 have been created. Three-fourths of the debtor's personalty, perhaps 
 nine-tenths, now consist of stock, money, and credit; and the rule of 
 law which leaves those out of all execution, no longer can mean as 
 before " Let all his personalty be liable" but " Let a tenth-part of 
 it only be taken." Can there be a greater change made upon, or 
 greater violence done to, the old law itself, than you thus do by aflect- 
 ing to preserve its letter? The great stream of time is perpetually 
 flowing on; all things around us are in ceaseless motion; and we 
 vainly imagine to preserve our relative position among them by get- 
 ting out of the current and standing stock still on the margin. The 
 stately vessel we belong to glides down; our bark is attached to it; 
 we might "pursue the triumph and partake the gale;" but, worse 
 than the fool who stares expecting the current to flow down and run 
 out, we exclaim Stop the boat! and would tear it away to strand 
 it, for the sake of preserving its connection with the vessel. All the 
 changes that are hourly and gently going on in spite of us, and all 
 those which we ought to make, that violent severances of settled rela- 
 tions may not be effected, far from exciting murmurs of discontent, 
 ought to be gladly hailed as dispensations of a bountiful Providence, 
 instead of rilling us with a thoughtless and preposterous alarm. 
 
 But the imperfect recourse against the debtor's estate, although the 
 grand opprobrium of our law, is by no means its only vice; the une- 
 qual distribution, in case of insolvency, is scarcely a less notable defect. 
 Only traders, or those who voluntarily take the benefit of the act, are 
 compelled, when insolvent, to make an impartial division of their pro- 
 perty. All others may easily, and with impunity, pay one creditor 
 twenty shillings in the pound, and the others sixpence, or nothing. 
 So when a man dies insolvent, his representatives may, by acknow- 
 ledging judgments, secure one creditor his full payment at the ex- 
 pense of all the rest. Then, lax and impotent as the law is against 
 property, wide as are its loopholes for fraud and extravagance to 
 escape by, utterly powerless as is its grasp to seize the great bulk of 
 the debtor's possessions, against his useless person it is equally power- 
 ful and unrelenting. The argument used is, that the concealed pro- 
 perty may thus be wrung from him; the principle, however, of the 
 law, and on which all its provisions are built, is, that the seizure of the 
 body works a satisfaction of the claim; and this satisfaction is given 
 alike in all cases alike where there is innocent misfortune, culpable 
 extravagance, and guilty embezzlement. Surely, for all these evils 
 the remedy is easy; it flows at once from the principles I set out with 
 stating under this head. Let the whole of every man's property, real 
 and personal his real, of what kind soever, copyhold, leasehold, 
 freehold; his personal, of whatever nature, debts, money, stock, chat- 
 tels be taken for the payment of all his debts equally, and, in case 
 of insolvency, let all be distributed rateably; let all he possesses be 
 sifted, bolted from him unsparingly, until all his creditors are satisfied 
 by payment or composition; but let his person only be taken when ho 
 conceals his goods, or has merited punishment by extravagance or
 
 600 LAW REFORM. 
 
 fraud. This line of distinction is already recognised by the practice 
 of the insolvent courts; but the privilege of the rules is inconsistent 
 with every principle, and ought at once to be abrogated as soon as 
 arrest on mesne process is abolished.* 
 
 viii. The last subject which presents itself to our notice, is the Appeal 
 from judgments recovered. Here, as in every other branch of our 
 jurisprudence, the courts of law and of equity proceed on opposite 
 principles, though dealing with the same matter. In the former, you 
 can only appeal on matter of law appearing upon the face of the re- 
 cord, or added to it by bill of exceptions, and never in any case before 
 final judgment. In the latter, you can appeal from any interlocutory 
 order as well as from the final decree, and upon all matter of fact as 
 well as of law. So it is in the ecclesiastical courts, where a grievance 
 (or complaint upon interlocutory matter) is as much the subject of ap- 
 pellative jurisdiction as the appeal from the final sentence; and the 
 court above sits on all the facts as well as on the law. But the courts 
 of common law are as much at variance with themselves; for it de- 
 pends on the court you sue in, and the process you sue by (bill or 
 original) how many stages of review you have. 
 
 The principal evil of courts of error, is the stay of execution which 
 they affect, thereby giving the losing party in possession an interest 
 in prosecuting groundless appeals. The bill of the right honourable 
 gentleman,! being a partial measure, while it intended to remedy this 
 evil, has rather increased it; because another more costly mode of ob- 
 taining the same delay being left open, the parties by defending 
 actions in themselves without defence avail themselves of it, to the 
 enormous multiplication of frivolous trials. The true remedy I take 
 to be this. Let the party who obtains a judgment be so far presumed 
 right as to get instant possession or execution, upon giving ample se- 
 curity for restitution should the sentence be reversed. This is the rule 
 in the Cape and other of our colonies; in the Cape, two sureties each 
 in double the amount, are required. It would also be an excellent 
 modification of this principle, to vest in judges the discretion of order- 
 ing the execution to be levied by instalments, upon reasonable secu- 
 rity being given. Hurried seizures, and sales for next to nothing, 
 would thus be avoided; as would the destruction of many valuable 
 concerns, to the ruin of the debtor, and the loss of the creditor also. 
 The reasonable delay thus safely granted would further tend to pre- 
 vent groundless appeals and frivolous defences, for mere dilatory pur- 
 poses. The details of this measure would be easily arranged; I am 
 sure that it well merits inquiry, if I shall obtain a commission.^ 
 
 I have now followed the proceedings in our courts through their 
 
 * This arrest, the end of which it is hoped fast approaches, was not generally 
 given by the common law. The capias ad respondendum is given in debt and detinue 
 by the Statute of West, v. 2, (13 Ed. I,) cap. 11; in case only so late as 19 H. 7, 
 c. 9. All this is remedied by the bill. 
 
 t Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 \. There has been material improvement since the late rules as to process in exe- 
 cution under the act of 1633.
 
 LAW REFORM. 601 
 
 whole course; and it will be observed, that I have said little or nothing 
 of Costs an important subject; perhaps, taken in all its bearings, the 
 most important of any; but which has so far been disposed of, in its 
 principal relation, by the discussion of whatever tends to shorten liti- 
 gation. A great, perhaps the greatest, evil of our system, as at pre- 
 sent constituted, is the excess of the costs which a party succeeding 
 is obliged to pay, over and above what he can recover from his an- 
 tagonist. This is so certain -and so considerable, that a man shall in 
 vain expect me to recommend him either to bring forward a rightful 
 claim, or to resist an unjust demand for any such sum as twenty or 
 even thirty pounds at least, upon a calculation of his interest, I 
 should presently declare to him, he had much better say nothing in 
 the one case, and pay the money a second time in the other, even if 
 he had a stamped receipt in his pocket, provided his adversary were 
 a rich and oppressive man, resolved to take all the advantages the law 
 gives him. I have here before me some samples of taxed bills of 
 costs, taken quite at random, and far from being peculiar cases in any 
 one respect. There is one of 428, made out by a very respectable 
 attorney, and from which the Master deducted 202-, of this sum, 
 147 were taken off; which had been paid for bringing witnesses. 
 In this other, amounting to 217, 76 were taxed off; and in a third 
 of 63, there were nearly 15 disallowed; it was an undefended cause, 
 to recover 50: had the defendant been obstinate and oppressively 
 inclined, he would have made the extra costs a good deal more than 
 the whole debt, although the suit was in the Exchequer, where the 
 taxation is known to be more liberal. We had lately, in the King's 
 Bench, a bill of above 100, to recover 19, and, probably, of that 
 j6lOO not above 60 would be allowed. As things now stand, a part 
 of this master evil is inevitable; for if practitioners were sure of re- 
 ceiving all their bills, they would run up a heavy charge wherever 
 they knew the case to be a clear one. But as the fundamental prin- 
 ciple for which I contend is, to alter no part of the law by itself, or 
 without considering all the other parts, there can be no difficulty, 
 consistently with this doctrine, to enlarge the allowance of costs as 
 soon as other amendments have prevented the abuse of litigation by 
 professional men. 
 
 Some erroneous rules of taxation may, even in a partial or insu- 
 lated reform, be altered. Whatever is fairly allowed as between attor- 
 ney and client, should be allowed between party and party, except 
 only such needless charges as have been ordered expressly by the 
 client himself. There can surely be no reason for disallowing, as a 
 general rule, all consultations, often absolutely necessary for (he con- 
 duct of a cause, generally more beneficial than much that is allowed; 
 nor can it be right, that so little of the expense of bringing evidence 
 should be given, and that the cost of preparing the case by inquiries', 
 journeys, &c., should be refused altogether. The necessary conse- 
 quence of not suffering an attorney to charge what lie ought to receive 
 for certain things, is that he is driven to do a number of needless 
 things, which he knows are always allowed as a mailer of course, 
 VOL. i. 51
 
 602 LAW REFORM. 
 
 and the expense is thus increased to the client far beyond the mere 
 gain which the attorney derives from it. I have a great doubt whether 
 benefit would not result from leaving the costs more in the discretion 
 of the court which tries a cause than they now are: in equity, they 
 are always so in the fullest extent; at law, almost all is fixed by 
 statute. 
 
 Sir, in casting an eye over the wide field which we have been sur- 
 veying, I trust the House will perceive that, although 1 have for the 
 most part arranged my observations under the different stages through 
 which causes are carried in our superior courts, I have yet been ena- 
 bled to discuss the greater and by much the more important parts of 
 our municipal jurisprudence. Indeed, with the exception of commer- 
 cial law, I am not aware of having left any branch untouched that 
 seemed to require amendment. I stated, in the outset, the reason 
 why that formed no immediate part of my plan. A great portion of 
 it is common to all trading countries, the Law-merchant, and is ex- 
 tremely well adapted to its purpose, being of comparatively modern 
 growth, and framed according to the exigencies of commerce. Some 
 other parts, however, are exceedingly defective. It would be difficult 
 to point out greater uncertainty, or more caprice, in any branch of the 
 system, than are to be found in the law of Partnership.* A man 
 can hardly tell whether he is a partner or not: being a partner, the 
 extent of his liability is scarcely less difficult to ascertain; and he will 
 often find it in vain to consult his lawyer on these important matters.! 
 The distribution of estates under the bankrupt law is likewise capa- 
 ble of very great improvement. After all that was lately done in 
 arranging and simplifying this code, it remains full of contradictions, 
 and the source of innumerable frauds arid endless litigation. But into 
 these things I abstain from entering. I must, however, once more 
 press upon the attention of the House, the necessity of taking a gene- 
 ral view of the whole system in whatever inquiries may be instituted. 
 Partial legislation on such a subject is pregnant with mischief. Timid 
 men, but still more blind than they are timid, recommend taking a 
 single branch at a time, and imagine that they are consulting the 
 safety of the mass. It is the very reverse of safe. In the body of 
 the law, all the members are closely connected; you cannot touch one 
 without affecting the rest; and if your eye is confined to the one you 
 deal, with, you cannot tell what others may be injured, and how. 
 Even a manifest imperfection may not be removed without great 
 risk, when it is not in some wholly insulated part; for it oftentimes 
 
 * Inquiries have lately been carried on by the Law Commissioners as to the 
 Law of Partnership, and an able report drawn up by Mr. B. Ker. 
 
 J- The execution of judgments on partnership property is a remarkable example. 
 The Sheriff must sell an undivided share, say a moiety of the whole; and the pur- 
 chaser becomes tenant in common with the solvent partner, who may find the East 
 India Company or government his co-tenant, and be still liable to account to the 
 other partner for his share of the profits; because the very effect of the execution 
 which has let in so disagreeable a co-tenant of the stock, will naturally be, to save 
 the necessity of going to prison (the only involuntary act of bankruptcy,) and thus 
 prevent a dissolution of the partnership.
 
 LAW REFORM. 603 
 
 happens that, by long use, a defect has given rise to some new ar- 
 rangement extending far beyond itself, and not to be disturbed with 
 impunity. The topical reformer, vrho confines his care to one flaw, 
 may thus do as much injury as a surgeon who should set himself 
 about violently reducing a luxation of long standing, where nature 
 had partially remedied the evil by forming a false joint, or should cut 
 away some visceral excrescence in which a new system of circula- 
 tion and other action was going on. Depend upon it, the general re- 
 formation of such a mechanism as our law, is not only the most effec- 
 tual, but the only safe course. This, in truth, alone deserves the 
 name of either a rational or a temperate reform.* 
 
 Then, what ground can there be for taking alarm at the course I 
 recommend of amendment, and proceeding by careful, but general 
 inquiry? It is, indeed, nothing new, even of late years, in this coun- 
 try. We appointed a commission to investigate the whole adminis- 
 tration of justice in Scotland; and it ended in altering the constitution 
 of the courts, and introducing a new mode of trying causes. Yet 
 Scotland, to say nothing of the treaty of Union, so often set up as a 
 bulwark against all change, might urge some very powerful reasons 
 for upholding her ancient system, which we in England should vainly 
 seek to parallel. She might hold up her statute book in three small 
 pocket volumes, the whole fruit of as many centuries of legislation, 
 while your table bends beneath the laws of a single reign and of 
 your whole jurisprudence, it maybe said, as of the Roman before 
 Justinian, that it would overload many camels. But I do not merely 
 cite, against alarms and scruples, that bold and wise and safe measure 
 of Lord Grenville; older authorities, and in the courts of Westminster, 
 are with me. I will rely on Lord Hale, whose celebrated Treatise Of 
 the. Amendment of the Law (far less studied, I fear, by our juriscon- 
 sults, than that of Fortescue)t well exposes the folly of such fears, 
 with their origin. " By long use and custom (says he), men, espe- 
 cially that are aged, and have been long educated to the profession and 
 practice of the law, contract a kind of superstitious veneration of it 
 beyond what is just and reasonable. They tenaciously and rigorously 
 maintain these very forms and proceedings and practices, which, 
 though possibly at first they were seasonable and useful, yet by the 
 very change of matters they become not only useless and impertinent, 
 but burthensome and inconvenient, and prejudicial to the common 
 justice and the common good of mankind; not considering the forms 
 and prescripts of laws were not introduced for their own sukes, but 
 for the use of public justice; and therefore, when they became insipid, 
 useless, impertinent, and possibly derogatory to the end, they may 
 and must be removed." Such is the language of Sir M. Hale. After 
 Lord Coke and Littleton himself, there is no higher authority in the 
 law than Shepherd, the author of the Tone -hstonc, who, in another of 
 
 * The labours of the Law Commissions upon Codification have been most mi 
 portant; their reports are of preat value on this subject. 
 j L)o Laudibus Legum Anjjliu:.
 
 604 LAW REFORM. 
 
 his works, called " England's Balm, or Proposals by way of Grievance 
 and Remedy, &c., towards the Regulation of the Law arid better Admin- 
 istration of Justice," reminds his legal brethren, that " taking away the 
 abuse of the law will establish the use of the law stabilit iisum qui 
 tollit abusum and that rooting up the tares will not destroy the 
 wheat."* If the House require further authorities upon this point, I 
 can refer them to one of the most instructive books published of late 
 years upon this matter, that of Mr. Parkes, a respectable solicitor in 
 Warwickshire, who, in giving a history of the Court of Chancery, has 
 collected most of the authorities upon the subject of legal reform. 
 
 But our predecessors, members of this House in the 17th century, 
 an age fruitful of great improvements, most of which were retained in 
 more quiet times, undertook the amendment of the law systematically, 
 and with a spirit and a wisdom every way worthy of so great a work. 
 In 1654, a Commission was formed partly of the House, partly of 
 learned strangers. At the head of the former, I find my honourable 
 friend the Solicitor General's less learned and more martial predeces- 
 sor, called in the Journals "Lord General Cromwell. "t But in front 
 of the latter stands "Mr. Mathew Hale," afterwards the great Chief 
 Justice, whose name is ever cited amongst the most venerable sup- 
 porters of our civil and our religious establishment. With them were 
 joined all the great jurisconsults and statesmen of that illustrious age. 
 They sat for five years, and proposed a number of the most important 
 and general reforms. I will read the titles of a few Acts, the draughts 
 of which the Commissioners prepared. 
 
 1. For taking away fines upon bills, declarations, and original 
 writs. 
 
 2. For taking away common recoveries, and the unnecessary 
 charges of fines, and to pass and charge lands entailed as lands in 
 fee-simple. 
 
 3. For ascertaining of arbitrary fines upon descent and alienation 
 of copyholds of inheritance. 
 
 4. For the more speedy recovery of Rents 
 
 5. For the better regulating of Pleaders and their Fees. 
 
 6. For the more speedy and easy recovery of Debts and Damages 
 not exceeding the sum of Four Pounds. 
 
 7. For the further declaration and prevention of Fraudulent Con- 
 tracts and Conveyances. 
 
 8. Against the Sale of Offices. 
 
 9. For the recovery of Debts owing by Corporations. 
 
 10. To make Debts assignable. 
 
 11. To prevent solicitation of Judges, Bribery, Extortion, Charge 
 of Motions, and for restriction of Pleaders. 
 
 12. An Act for all County Registers, Will, and Administrators; and 
 
 * There is certainly a notion of Mr. Justice Doddridge being the author of this 
 excellent book, or at least standing in the same relation to it that C. B. Gilbert does 
 to Bacon's Ab.; for the dates of some works cited in it make it impossible he should 
 have written it all. 
 
 | O. Cromwell was member for Cambridge town; Mr. Tindal for the university.
 
 LAW REFORM. 605 
 
 for preventing Inconvenience, Delay, Charge, and Irregularity, in 
 Chancery and Common Law, (as well in common pleas as criminal 
 causes.) 
 
 13. Acts for settling County Judicatures, Guardians of Orphans, 
 Courts of Appeal, County Treasurers, and Workhouses, with Tables 
 of Fees and Short Forms of Declaration. 
 
 14. An Act to allow Witnesses to be Sworn for Prisoners. 
 
 The House is aware that, till much later in our history, by the 
 great wisdom, justice, and humanity of our ancestors, it was provided 
 that the witnesses for a defendant should not deliver their testimony 
 upon oath; until the time of Queen Anne, the prosecutor only was 
 allowed to prove his case by sworn evidence; and the communication 
 of the same right to the defendant, may be looked upon by some as 
 a rude invasion of the ancient system, and a cruel departure from the 
 perfections of the olden time. 
 
 This is not the only measure prepared by that celebrated Commis- 
 sion which has since been adopted, as the House will see by the 
 enumeration I have given.* But steps were taken immediately after 
 the restoration, for prosecuting its plans more systematically. A 
 committee was appointed by this House to examine the state of 
 the law and its practice; Sergeant Maynard arid other eminent law- 
 yers were members of it. From their numbers, fifty-one, I presume 
 they subdivided themselves for the convenience of inquiring sepa- 
 rately into different branches of the subject. Upon their reports 
 several bills were brought in for the general reform of the law; but 
 in tracing their progress through the House, the prorogation appears 
 to have come before any of them was passed. After a long interval 
 of various fortune, and filled with vast events, but marked from age 
 to age by a steady course of improvement, we are again called to the 
 grand labour of surveying and amending our laws. For this task it 
 well becomes us to begird ourselves, as the honest representatives of 
 the people. Dispatch and vigour are imperiously demanded; but 
 that deliberation, too, must not be lost sight of which so mighty an 
 enterprise requires. When we shall have doe the work, we may 
 fairly challenge the utmost approval of our co-nstituents, for in none 
 other have they so deep a stake. 
 
 In pursuing the course which I now invite you to enter upon, I 
 avow that I look for the co-operation of the King's government; and 
 on what are my hopes founded? Men gather not grapes from thorns, 
 nor figs from thistles. Hut that the vine should no longer yield its 
 wonted fruit that the fig-tree should refuse its natural increase 
 required a miracle to strike it with barn:nness. There are those in 
 the present ministry, whose known liberal opinions have lately boon 
 proclaimed anew to the world, and pledges have been avouched for 
 
 * Sir S. Kornilly's valuable MSS., as has been already stated, contain tlio 
 exposition and discussion of many reforms in the law, written forty or fifty years 
 ago. More than one-half of the measures there propounded, have, of late years, 
 and most of them since his lamented decease, been adopted by the legislature; a 
 strong presumption in favour of his plans generally. 
 
 51*
 
 606 LAW REFORM. 
 
 their influence upon the policy of the state. With them, others may 
 not, upon all subjects, agree; upon this, I would fain hope there will 
 be found little difference. But, be that as it may, whether I have 
 the support of the ministers or no to the House I look with con- 
 fident expectation, that it will control them, and assist me; if I go too 
 far, checking my progress, if too fast abating my speed; but heartily 
 and honestly helping me in the best and greatest work which the 
 hands of the lawgiver can undertake. The course is clear before us; 
 the race is glorious to run. You have the power of sending your 
 name down through all times, illustrated by deeds of higher fame, 
 and more useful import, than ever were done within these walls. 
 You saw the greatest warrior of the age conqueror of Italy hum- 
 bler of Germany terror of the North saw him account all his 
 matchless victories poor, compared with the triumph you are now in 
 a condition to win saw him contemn the fickleness of fortune, while, 
 in despite of her, he could pronounce his memorable boast, " I shall go 
 down to posterity with the Code in my hand!" You have vanquished 
 him in the field; strive now to rival him in the sacred arts of peace! 
 Outstrip him as a lawgiver, whom in arms you overcame! The lustre 
 of the Regency will be eclipsed by the more solid and enduring splen- 
 dour of the Reign. The praise which false courtiers feigned for our 
 Edwards and Harrys, the Justinians of their day, will be the just 
 tribute of the wise and the good to that monarch under whose sway 
 so mighty an undertaking shall be accomplished. Of a truth, the 
 holders of sceptres are most chiefly to be envied for that they bestow 
 the power of thus conquering, and ruling thus. It was the boast of 
 Augustus it formed part of the glare in which the perfidies of his 
 earlier years were lost that he found Rome of brick, and left it of 
 marble; a praise not unworthy a great prince, and to which the pre- 
 sent reign also has its claims. But how much nobler will be the sove- 
 reign's boast, when he shall have it to say, that he found law dear, 
 and left it cheap; found it a sealed book left it a living letter; found 
 it the patrimony of the rich left it the inheritance of the poor; found 
 it the two-edged sword of craft and oppression left it the staff of 
 honesty and the shield of innocence! To me, much reflecting on 
 these things, it has always seemed a worthier honour to be the in- 
 strument of making you bestir yourselves in this high matter, than to 
 enjoy all that office can bestow office, of which the patronage 
 would be an irksome incumbrance, the emoluments superfluous to 
 one content with the rest of his industrious fellow-citizens, that his 
 own hands minister to his wants: And as for the power supposed to 
 follow it I have lived near half a century, and I have learned that 
 power and place may be severed. But one power I do prize; that 
 of being the advocate of my countrymen here, and their fellow- 
 labourer elsewhere, in those things which concern the best interests of 
 mankind. That power, I know full well, no government can give 
 no change take away! 
 
 I move you, sir, -'That an humble Address be presented to his 
 Majesty, praying that he will be graciously pleased to issue a Com-
 
 LAW REFORM. 607 
 
 mission for inquiring into the defects, occasioned by time and other- 
 wise, in the Laws of this realm, and in the measures necessary for 
 removing the same." 
 
 [Upon the adjourned debate on Mr. Brougham's motion, on Fri- 
 day, February 29, the following resolution, substituted by him with, 
 the assent of the government, was unanimously carried: 
 
 "That an humble Address be presented to his Majesty, respectfully 
 requesting that his Majesty may be pleased to take such measures as 
 may seem most expedient for the purpose of causing due inquiry to 
 be made into the origin, progress, and termination of actions in the 
 Superior Courts of Common La win this country, and matters connected 
 therewith; and into the state of the Law regarding the Transfer of 
 Real Property."]
 
 SPEECH 
 
 LOCAL COURTS. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 
 APRIL 29, 1830. 
 
 I RISE, sir, to call the attention of the House to a subject which 
 I had the honour, some two years and a half ago, to bring under its 
 consideration; and, in the first place, I will state the reason which 
 has prevented me from again bringing it forward at an earlier period. 
 The motion which I formerly made led to the appointment of two 
 commissions, and both of them have reported on the subject matters 
 submitted to them for inquiry. One report has been made on the 
 Law of Real Property; and I am in great hopes that a second report 
 will soon be made. The other commission has drawn up two reports, 
 with respect to proceedings at common law. Now if I had renewed 
 the subject after the first report had been made, I must have intro- 
 duced it at a very great disadvantage, because the commissioners 
 had disclosed their intention to follow up that report, with suggestions 
 upon many of those questions to which I had turned my attention. 
 I have, therefore, waited till the second report was before the House, 
 that I might perfectly know what the commissioners propose. Let 
 it not, sir, for one moment be supposed, that in again calling the at- 
 tention of the House to this most important subject, I have any ground 
 of complaint as to the manner in which the commissioners have con- 
 ducted these inquiries; for, in every part of them, those learned persons 
 seem to me to have proceeded with great zeal as well as discretion. 
 
 Tne commissioners appear to have proceeded with the greatest 
 possible caution, with the utmost degree of deliberation. That evils 
 exist in the system of our administration of the law is not attributable 
 to them; and, although much remains to be performed, the portion 
 of the subject which they have investigated is, unquestionably, of 
 paramount importance. They have acted faithfully and merito- 
 riously; and I do not complain of their powers either as being too
 
 LOCAL COURTS. 609 
 
 limited or inadequately exercised. Their inquiries have been con- 
 ducted in a proper spirit; they have held tht;ir course in a becoming 
 and exact mean, between inconsiderate rashness and undue subser- 
 viency, keeping a middle line, and neither setting at naught the 
 long pondered decisions of authority, nor evincing that over-strained 
 respect for existing institutions which too often degenerates into a 
 veneration of existing abuses. The great learning and experience 
 of the commissioners, and the knowledge which, as practical men well 
 acquainted with the law, they have brought to the consideration of 
 the subject, are of the utmost importance, and every body admits the 
 ability with which they have applied their resources to the subject 
 matter of their investigations. The vast body of evidence of other 
 practical men which they hare collected, their own suggestions and 
 recommendations, which, more especially in the second report, contain 
 matter worthy of the greatest attention, a report that is full of pro- 
 found thought, and, if I may be allowed so to speak, of most ingenious 
 invention on the science and the practice of the law all these merits 
 entitled the commissioners to receive, and no doubt they have re- 
 ceived, the unqualified approbation, not only of professional men, 
 but of all persons interested in, and who are capable of understanding, 
 the subject. I will venture to say, that within the last century and 
 a half there has not been produced in this country anything like the 
 quantity of important matter which the commissioners, partly in the 
 fruit of their own suggestions, and partly in the evidence and facts 
 adduced by others, have laid before the House on this subject. 
 
 Having said thus much, it cannot be supposed that I have brought 
 forward the subject which I am about to open in a spirit of hostility 
 or censure towards the commissioners, with whom, on the contrary, 
 I am prepared to go hand in hand to further the Reform of the Law: 
 my object being simply to take up a part of the question which they 
 have left untouched. If I saw any prospect of the commissioners 
 directing their labours to this part of the subject within any reason- 
 able time, I should be disposed to leave it entirely untouched; or if I 
 thought the matter intimately and inseparably connected with the 
 residue of the subject the matter of their present and unfinished in- 
 quiries I should then think, that for the general convenience, and in 
 order to avoid the necessity of a double discussion, it would be better 
 to postpone my motion. But I find, after the best consideration, that 
 neither is there a prospect, within a reasonable time, of the com- 
 missioners being able to turn their attention to that part of the question 
 which I have in view, nor is it so mixed up with what is already 
 before them, that I ought to decline directing the attention of the 
 House to the subject. 
 
 If, sir, it were asserted by some traveller, that he had visited a 
 country in which a man, to recover a debt of jCG or 7, must begin 
 by expending JLGQ or .70, where, at the outset, to use a common 
 expression, he had to run the risk of throwing so much good money 
 after bad, and to p:iy almost as much even if he succeeded. it would 
 at once be said, that whatever other advantages that country enjoyed,
 
 610 LAW REFORM. 
 
 at least it was not fortunate in its system of law. But if it were 
 further related, that in addition to spending 60 or 70, a man must 
 endure great difficulties, anxiety, and vexation, infinite bandying to 
 and fro, and moving about from province to province, and from court 
 to court, before he could obtain judgment, then our envy of the 
 country where such administration of the law and legal institutions 
 existed, would be still further diminished. If to this information, it 
 were added, that in the same country, after having spent 60 or 70, 
 the adversary of the creditor had the power of keeping all his property 
 out of his way, so that after all the suitor's expense, all his delay, and 
 all his anxiety, it must still be doubtful whether he could obtain a 
 single farthing of his debt; if, furthermore, it were stated, that in the 
 same country, although the debtor were solvent and willing to pay 
 what the law required at his hands, the creditor would receive, it is 
 true, his original claim of 6 or 1, but not the whole 60 or 70 
 which he had expended in costs to recover it, by about 20, so 
 that on the balance he would be some 13 or 14 out of pocket by suc- 
 cess, over and above the amount of the debt which he recovered, after 
 being exposed to a variety of needless plagues, beside the unavoid- 
 able annoyance of these proceedings; if we were told of such a case, 
 would not the natural inquiry be, " Whether it was possible that such 
 a country existed?" Sir, the individual to whom this strange infor- 
 mation was given, if he supposed it possible that such a country ex- 
 isted, would at least pronounce it to be one of the most barbarous 
 and unenlightened in the world. That it must be a poor country, he 
 would think quite obvious and equally obvious that it must be of 
 no commercial power of no extent of capital of no density of pop- 
 ulation, because those circumstances most necessarily produce from 
 hour to hour transactions involving important and valuable interests. 
 Nevertheless, I need not remind the House, for every man who 
 hears me must be aware (many are aware to their cost) of the fact 
 that such a country, so unfortunately circumstanced is no other than 
 that in which I now speak England. Then arises the question, 
 how is this admitted evil to be remedied? and in order to know how 
 the remedy may be applied, the first point is to ascertain whence 
 proceeds the evil? To give examples of the evil, and its origin, may 
 be the best mode of proceeding. 
 
 I am thus entering at once into the middle of my subject, and I am 
 persuaded that such is the most convenient and expedient course, 
 because it enables me at once to see and grapple with the real diffi- 
 culties of the inquiry, to which, far be it from me for one moment to 
 shut my eyes. That part of the mischief which can be got rid of, I 
 call upon you to remove. I formerly took the opportunity of stating 
 a kind of experiment I made at one of the Lancaster assizes, when 
 my honourable and learned friend,* was present. I requested the 
 prothonotary to furnish me with a list of all the verdicts recorded: 
 they were fifty in number, during that assize, and the average amount 
 
 * Sir James Scarlett.
 
 LOCAL COURTS. 611 
 
 of those verdicts I found to be for sums under fourteen pounds thir- 
 teen pounds odd shillings each. I do not mean to represent that there 
 were not three or four actions in which the damages were nominal; 
 some of them actions of ejectment, and other suits to decide rights; 
 hut the bulk of the verdicts were on actions of debt, or in the nature 
 of debt, and the average was less than the sum for which, by law, a 
 creditor may hold his debtor to bail. I am far from saying that such 
 is the general result of actions, either at the assizes or in London; but 
 still it is not much out of the general course. Taking the average of 
 the five years ending in 1827, the number of actions brought in all 
 the courts of Westminster was something under 80,000. I believe 
 that the precise amount was 79,000. The number of these actions 
 that were brought to trial amounted to little more than 7000, being 
 one case brought to trial only out of eleven actions commenced. No 
 doubt many of those actions were not proceeded with, on account of 
 the heavy costs, delay, and vexation that must be incurred in doing so. 
 But, passing by that topic for the present, (having stated the fact with 
 a different view,) if we would form some estimate of the kind of sums 
 for the recovery of which the generality of actions are brought, we 
 are enabled by some documents that have been laid upon the table, 
 to approximate to a conclusion on the subject. This I shall endea- 
 vour to do without going too minutely into details. 
 
 In 1827 there was a return of the number of affidavits of debt in 
 the King's Bench and Common Pleas for two years and a-half. 
 During that period the number of affidavits for sums above 10 was 
 93,000 odd hundreds, but in round numbers we will call it 93,000. 
 Of them, of course, a great number were the foundations of the 
 79,000 actions before spoken of; for an affidavit of debt, as every body 
 knows, is the earliest proceeding in the commencement of an action. 
 Let us see, then, in what proportion the affidavits were for small 
 sums, moderate sums, and large sums: 29,800 were for sums be- 
 tween 10 and 20, and no more; 34,200 were for sums between 
 20 and 50, making together 64,000 out of 93,000 for sums not 
 exceeding 50. For sums not exceeding 100, and of course in- 
 cluding the 64,000, the number of actions was no less than 78,000 odd 
 hundreds. Thus the House will observe, that of the whole number 
 of 93,000 affidavits, there were no less than one-third for sums not 
 exceeding 20; no less than two-thirds for sums not exceeding 50; 
 and again, that there were no less than five-sixths for sums not ex- 
 ceeding 100. The House will pardon me for not going more into 
 details what I have stated is the result of recollection, but I think I 
 may pledge myself for its accuracy, and it will be perceived at once 
 that it leads to a most important practical conclusion that the vast 
 bulk of the litigation of the country resolves itself, as far as actions of 
 debt and in the nature of debt go, into actions where the sum in dis- 
 pute is not more than 100. 
 
 I now beg to draw the notice of the House with greater particularity 
 to the costs of these proceedings, and what a creditor is exposed to 
 who undertakes to prosecute an action. 1 have hitherto dealt only
 
 612 LAW REFORM. 
 
 in general descriptions of his expenses and sufferings. In their first 
 report, towards the close of their appendix, the commissioners have 
 inserted some valuable table of costs, and to three or four of them, 
 applicable to actions in the Court of King's Bench, I beg leave to re- 
 quest especial attention. First, I should state, that these are real bills 
 of costs; and next, that they are reduced to the very lowest scale, the 
 words of the commissioners being, " they are framed on the lowest 
 possible scale of expenditure." One of these bills is in an action that 
 was tried in London by parties residing in the county of Lancaster. 
 The particulars of the bill itself show, that not only was it framed on 
 the lowest possible scale, but also that neither the length of the pro- 
 ceedings, nor any other incident, had tended to increase the expense. 
 There was nothing out of the ordinary course; in fact, the circum- 
 stances were the most favourable that could exist, under the present 
 system, for cheap arid expeditious justice. The costs, up to the ver- 
 dict, amounted to 86, and, including some further proceedings (it 
 being a special case) necessary to be had before the verdict could be 
 rendered available, the expense was 110. Out of that is to be de- 
 ducted for delay, only 10 odd shillings. There was the delay of a 
 term in taking the argument in the second stage of the proceeding, and 
 the delay of one sittings in bringing the cause to trial. On these ac- 
 counts, from the sum of 86 costs, there is to be deducted .6. and 
 10 from the entire amount of 110. I will suppose the fact to be, 
 however, that there was no delay in the administration of the law, 
 that all the recommendations of the commissioners for preventing it 
 had been carried into effect that we had derived all the good from 
 them which might be anticipated; I will assume that, under the new 
 system of law, the expected saving of time and expense has been 
 brought about; and what is the consequence as respects this case? 
 Why, that we shall have to deduct 6 from the expense of the first 
 stage, and 4 from the expense of the second, leaving SO as the ex- 
 pense of the verdict, and 100 as the indispensable costs of the entire 
 case. I admit that a considerable portion of the expense here was 
 owing to the attendance of witnesses. I do not merely mean to say I 
 admit, but I assert and maintain this; it is one of the principal grounds 
 of the proposition which I intend to submit to the House. It is true, 
 this cause was brought from the county of Lancaster to London to be 
 tried; but if tried in Lancaster, there would have been the very same 
 expense, according to all ordinary calculation of chances. The wit- 
 nesses in this case were, an architect, master carpenter, and labourers; 
 and, in taxing costs, two guineas a-day are allowed for an architect, 
 or surgeon, physician, or any person of skill and science. Fifteen 
 shillings a-day are allowed for a master carpenter, and five shillings 
 a-day for a labourer; to which are to be added an allowance for 
 mileage, and the maintenance of the witnesses on the road, which, I 
 perceive, is at the rate of eight pence per mile. Then, as to delay, let 
 me remark, that the delay in trying a cause at the assizes is often much 
 greater than in trying a cause in London; and there can be no man- 
 ner of doubt that this very circumstance was one of the causes ope-
 
 LOCAL COURTS. 613 
 
 rating upon the plaintiff in inducing him to prefer London to the 
 country, in this case. Either he got the cause tried early in London, 
 or by making the case a special jury case, he had to keep his attor- 
 ney and witnesses only one day, or at most, two days in town; while, 
 at York or Lancaster, they might be detained for four, five, six ay, 
 and I have known it to fall out, for ten, twelve, or fourteen days, be- 
 fore the trial was brought on. Attorneys are allowed iwo guineas a- 
 day, if they have only one cause at the assizes, and one guii;ja a-day 
 for each case, if they have several: and a plaintiff is not answerable, 
 if it should happen that his attorney has only one cause; all his wit- 
 nesses are to be paid, not only going and returning, but while they 
 are in the assize town, at least at the rate already mentioned; aud 
 as long as the present system continues, I look upon this as essential to 
 and inseparable from it it may be as necessary a part of the expendi- 
 ture as the retaining of counsel or the employment of an attorney; 
 indeed, 1 am not sure if it be not even more necessary. Now, how 
 much must be added to this, on account of the difference between the 
 costs incurred and the costs taxed? This is to say, after obtaining the 
 costs recovered from an adversary as the consequence of the verdict, 
 how much is a plaintiff out of pocket? 
 
 It may be remembered that I formerly produced to the House four 
 bills of costs, all from the offices of most respectable attorneys; in one 
 of 400, about 200 (or half) was deducted on taxation; so that the 
 client who had obtained judgment was 200 out of pocket, unless the 
 debt which lie recovered was greater than that sum. Another was a 
 bill from which one-third had been taxed off: 70 was deducted out 
 of 210. In a third case, which was the lowest of the whole, because 
 it was an undefended cause, 15 out of 00, or one-fourth, was taxed 
 off. The successful suitor received 15 less than he had expended. 
 This was a 50 cause; and if the plaintiff's adversary had had a long 
 purse, and a litigious temper, he could, if he chose, have put his 
 creditor to an expense of 80 before the latter got a verdict, or to 
 100 costs before final judgment. In point of fact, I might take it 
 higher: the plaintiff might have had to pay 120 before he obtained 
 a verdict, and 150 before judgment. He would be allowed out of 
 this 150 only 100: 50 being struck off for extra costs; of course 
 he would also be allowed his debt of 50, making precisely the 
 amount expended 150; and so the man is a gainer in money of not 
 one farthing (saying nothing about his debt), and has been exposed to 
 all the delay, harassing vexation, embarrassment, and anxiety, of a 
 year and a half or two years' legal proceedings, together with the risk 
 of losing his suit, and having to pay 100 instead of receiving any- 
 thing. I say, sir, in addition to that, he would have been exposoj to 
 all the vexation of delay, and to the distress of uncertainty; and if he 
 be a man who, for the first lime, has brought an action into a court oi 
 justice, it is most likely to be his last experiment of the kind. I am 
 here taking an instance most favourable to the other side <>!' the ques- 
 tion, and it is needless to say that it is anything rather than an ave.rago 
 case; in general, those who succeed have to pay more than they re- 
 VOL. i. 52
 
 614 LAW REFORM. 
 
 ceive, and are often considerably out of pocket. What is the practical 
 result? Simply this that any man acquainted with the proceedings 
 of courts of justice, and exercising a sound discretion upon the mere 
 pecuniary question, would never think of suing for a debt of less than 
 20 or 30. I should rather say, hardly for a sum under 40 or 50. 
 Upon the same principle, a man would hardly think of resisting an 
 unjust claim for such an amount, even if he had a receipt on a stamp 
 in his pocket. He would pay the demand rather than enter a court 
 of justice, and endure the annoyance and expense of a trial, with a 
 certainty of being out of pocket if he gained the cause, and a chance 
 of being still more out of pocket if he failed. 
 
 I had very lately occasion to speak with an attorney of extensive 
 practice, residing only twenty-two miles from an assize town, upon 
 this point, and he said, that if he himself were a party in a cause, he 
 should never think of going into court there for a less sum than .40 
 or 50. This was the solicitor's private opinion about the matter; 
 but whether he recommended a similar course to his clients, I do not 
 undertake to say. To be sure a man would, in many cases, be justi- 
 fied in bringing actions for small sums, or resisting flagrant and extor- 
 tionate demands, on other grounds than those of mere pecuniary 
 interest; but with reference to his pecuniary interest alone, and if he 
 merely consulted that, there would be every inducement not to sue. 
 I am well aware that it is not only always easier to point out defects 
 than to apply remedies; but also, that he who propounds a cure for 
 mischief of the widest extent, the most intolerable, and recognised as 
 such by the unanimous admission of all persons of all ranks, who have 
 observed others suffering from its effects, or experienced it themselves, 
 somewhat exposes himself, and gives an opponent a decided advan- 
 tage; he is always more or less in the predicament of an inventor; he 
 always seems to be a person who sets his wits above other men, and 
 affects to be wiser than those who have gone before him; and I there- 
 fore unfeignedly avow, that I feel much distrust of myself, in bringing 
 forward that which appears to me a remedy. In doing so, it is neces- 
 sary to examine into the causes of the evil. Here I may say, I am 
 perfectly sensible that something will be done when the recommenda- 
 tions of the commissioners are carried into effect; I know, and I 
 rejoice to know, that some of the great evils will be removed, as the 
 result of their inquiries; but 1 am equally certain that still much will 
 remain to be done, and I trust the kind of remedy I propose will be 
 one which, while it carries further the design of the commissioners 
 themselves, will be found most accurately and nicely to chime in and 
 harmonize with, instead of being repugnant to, their principles. 
 
 I have stated the principal causes of the evils we all see and suffer; 
 and I shall by-and-by proceed to the remedy. The great evil arises 
 out of the distance to which parties are necessarily dragged, in order 
 to obtain a decision upon their rights. For many, many ages it has 
 been the system of English jurisprudence, that justice should originate 
 and be to a great extent administered in the centre of the kingdom, or 
 what is politically, though not geographically, its centre. The me-
 
 LOCAL COURTS. 615 
 
 tropolis has been made as it were the great mart of justice, from 
 whence all processes issue, and to which all processes are returned. 
 It has been fixed, that all litigants should more or less resort to Lon- 
 don, to derive from it the remedies which they seek at the hands of 
 the law. This is not of itself the cause of the expense of legal pro- 
 ceedings, because the mere difference between sending to London 
 from Lancashire or Yorkshire for a writ, and sending for it to Lan- 
 caster or York, is not alone worth being considered. But out of that 
 arises another part of the system to which this observation does not 
 apply. The judges come from the metropolis, as well as the writs 
 and legal processes which give rise to their jurisdiction, and the 
 country litigant must wait till the judge visits his county, which is 
 once in each half year. You must wait, but that is not all. In order 
 to have your cause tried, you must go perhaps to the remote corner of 
 the county to the assize town; there you must consult your law advi- 
 sers; thither you must send your agent and witnesses; they must be 
 kept there perhaps during the whole assizes; and it is often a race be- 
 tween the respective agents as to who shall enter his cause latest, in 
 order that he may have the longest bill. Respectable \vitnesses must 
 be paid for loss of time and skill witnesses of inferior condition must 
 be better paid, and at a higher rate than their time is worth; common 
 day-labourers receiving 5s. a-day. Then there is the expense of en- 
 tertaining the witnesses, and in this respect there is frequently a good 
 deal of competition between the agents of opposite parties, it being 
 pretty well understood, that the party who pays witnesses shabbily is 
 sure to pay for it, in the course of the assizes, by the conduct of some 
 of them. All this is essential to, and inseparable from, the scheme of 
 requiring parties to go twice a-year to the assize town, and there have 
 the causes tried. Then comes another stage of the proceeding equally 
 attended with heavy costs; if any point be reserved on an appeal made 
 from the decision, it must be discussed in London, and to London the 
 agents must be sent with great delay, and a great and unnecessary 
 expense. What is the obvious remedy? To that I shall come pre- 
 sently; but, in doing so, as I have before stated, I wish to steer clear, 
 as far as possible, of the difficulties and objections to which the pre- 
 scribing of remedies is liable. 
 
 In the propositions of the law commissioners some slight remedies 
 may be found for the evil of which I complain. For instance, the 
 proposed alterations in the mode of issuing processes will effect a 
 diminution of expense: they will save a few shillings out of the jCSO. 
 Another, which tended *to lessen the arrears of the court, would, of 
 course, save time, and thus curtail the expense arising from delay; it 
 would cut off jCIO from the larger, and 6 from the smaller bill. Upon 
 these follow many olhcr excellent propositions for the despatch of 
 business, for effecting improvements in the administration of justice, 
 for removing uncertainty, and for the regulation of costs. I alludo. in 
 particular, to that proposition which regards the proof of written docu- 
 ments. There is not, however, a single document in the case to 
 which I have alluded; and this proposition, therefore, docs not bear
 
 616 LAW REFORM. 
 
 upon my argument; so that, if it should prove in practice as success- 
 ful as I unfeignedly hope and believe it will, still it would not cut off 
 one farthing from the expense which I pointed out as being so great 
 an evil. In like manner, the form and substance of pleadings will be 
 materially improved by the propositions of the commissioners. This 
 part of the report contains some of the happiest thoughts, some of the 
 most ingenious, and, allow me to call them also, some of the most 
 profound suggestions for the improvement and advancement of the 
 science of pleading, which are well worthy the attention of every man, 
 and of every lawyer, as well as of those whose skill and learning are 
 chiefly employed upon subjects connected with that science. These 
 propositions, however, important and valuable as they are, do not 
 tend to remedy the abuse of which I complain, and which arises, first, 
 from the distance of the places at which causes are tried; and next, 
 from the fact of their being heard at London in the last resort. 
 
 I trust the House will pardon me if I remind them that they have 
 now seen how the principal mischief and the chief cause of complaint 
 relates to actions under a certain amount. I have shown that it 
 relates to actions which are confined to a moderate amount. If, how- 
 ever, the amount were large instead of small, that would be no reason 
 why the complaint should not cease. The abuse would still call for 
 remedy; but the crying evil of which I am now speaking attaches to 
 actions for from 20 to 100. Now I would fain call the attention 
 of the House to the old scheme of administering justice, which for- 
 merly prevailed in this country, with respect to such actions, and 
 which was evidently intended to avoid expensive litigation. Let me 
 not be misunderstood. I am too fully sensible of the great and mani- 
 fest advantages which result from that arrangement which makes the 
 capital the seat of justice, to attempt to alter it, even if I supposed I 
 could succeed in the attempt. With this explanation, let me observe 
 that, long antecedent to our jurisprudence assuming its present form, 
 there existed a more convenient and less expensive mode of trial, in 
 the county courts. The origin of these courts is lost in remote an- 
 tiquity, and learned men have differed with respect to the constitution 
 and jurisdiction of them; but all agree upon one point namely, that 
 in the time of the Saxons they were the great tribunals of the country, 
 and that they possessed a most extensive jurisdiction. My opinion 
 I know that in holding it I differ from many learned men my very 
 humble opinion is, that the county court possessed originally a crimi- 
 nal as well as a civil jurisdiction. Be that, however, as it may, it is 
 certain that, in the Saxon times, the county court had jurisdiction in 
 mutters as well ecclesiastical as civil. We find a law in the time of 
 Edgar or Canute Let the bishop and the earl meet the county, the 
 one to state the law of God, and the other the law of the land; or, as 
 the phrase is, the one to teach the people the law of God, the other 
 the law of the land. 
 
 This practice continued down to the time of the Conquest; but soon 
 after that event, the ecclesiastical part of the jurisdiction of the county 
 court was separated from the civil. Before that, however, the prin-
 
 LOCAL COURTS. 617 
 
 ciple of the law was, that a man should, in the first instance, seek jus- 
 tice at home; and that he should not seek it from the king, until his 
 attempts to obtain it from the sheriff in the county court had failed. 
 Sir Harry Spelman, commenting upon this law, observes, that the 
 reason of it was, that the suitors should not be obliged to go far off to 
 obtain justice. In the sixth year after the Conquest, the sixth of Wil- 
 liam I., there was a celebrated cause tried in the county of Kent, in 
 which the archbishop, three bishops, and the earl presided; Lanfranc 
 was the archbishop, and one of the parties in the suit was Odo, half- 
 brother to the King. This meeting of the county lasted somewhat 
 longer than some recent meetings in the same place, for it lasted three 
 days, and the court decided upon the claim to manors of very consi- 
 derable value, which decision was afterwards confirmed in Parlia- 
 ment. In process of time the sheriff's court appears to have fallen 
 into disrepute, and, perhaps, an institution well adapted to a simple 
 state of society, was not found to answer the purposes of a more im- 
 proved state. As early as the sixth year of Edward I., it was pro- 
 vided by the statute of Gloucester, that the county court should have 
 exclusive jurisdiction in pleas of debt and damages under the value 
 of 40,9. That statute only provided that the jurisdiction of these 
 courts should be exclusive in such pleas; it did not confine their juris- 
 diction to such pleas. Probably, however, in the course of a century 
 after, 40-?. became the maximum. Certainly this happened not long 
 afterwards. 
 
 Such, then, was, at that period, the constitution of the county courts 
 in England: and now, I would fain, with the permission of the 
 house, call their attention to the constitution of the county courts of 
 the sister kingdom Scotland; for when we are trying to apply a 
 remedy, it is right, before we adopt any change, to see if, among 
 many remedies, there is one which has been adopted elsewhere; and 
 if so, to inquire how it has been found to work there. I need not 
 remind, perhaps, any one, but certainly I need remind no lawyer 
 that, however widely the general jurisprudence and practice of the 
 two countries may at this moment differ, the early laws of the two 
 were very much alike; so alike, indeed, that while in England it is 
 contended that the book called Regiam Majestatem was copied from 
 Glanvil's book on the laws of this country so, on the other hand, it 
 has been asserted in Scotland, that the Regiam Majestatem was the 
 original of Glanvil's work. This dispute proves at least the remark- 
 able similarity which subsisted between the early laws of the two 
 countries. The same similarity existed also in the administration of 
 justice; and, while no one can doubt that many most valuable im- 
 provements have been effected in this country, of which the benefits 
 liave not been shared by Scotland, still, with all my prejudices in 
 favour of the English system, I cannot help regretting that Scotland 
 has retained some parts of the ancient system which was originally 
 common to both, but which have boon laid aside in England. In both 
 countries the constitution of the county court was originally the same; 
 in both the jurisdiction was unlimited. 
 
 52*
 
 618 LAW REFORM. 
 
 The original county court was that at which the bishop and earl or 
 alderman, with the viscount or sheriff, presided. In Scotland, the 
 Sheriff's Court took cognizance of the four pleas of the crown, with 
 the permission of the justiciary, and, in all civil suits, the county court 
 was of unlimited jurisdiction. The appointment to the office of sheriff 
 soon took a different turn; originally elective, it was made an appoint- 
 ment for years, and afterwards for life; it then came in Scotland to be 
 conferred in fee. This led to what is called, in Scotland, "heritable 
 jurisdiction," the earl became hereditary, and the viscount or sheriff 
 a privileged individual, well known to the laws of that country. It 
 was not very long ago that, at the abolition of these heritable juris- 
 dictions, the county court was put upon its present advantageous foot- 
 ing. The number of forfeitures in the rebellions of 1715 and 1745 
 vested many of those jurisdictions in the crown. There are none of 
 the hereditary jurisdictions riot open to serious objection, except per- 
 haps the hereditary jurisdiction vested in the peers of this realm of Eng- 
 land, to which no objections of that nature apply. In the year 1746, 
 an act was passed abolishing all the hereditary jurisdictions, giving 
 compensation to some of the parties, and vesting all the shrievalties 
 in the crown; and the first step taken thereupon was to appoint 
 sheriffs depute for life in all the counties. The persons appointed to 
 that office are, for the most part, gentlemen of some professional stand- 
 ing at the bar, and the courts over which they preside take cognizance 
 of all matters, to which a very extensive civil jurisdiction can be 
 applied. Those officers are paid a moderate, reasonable salary, and 
 their appointment is attended with the best effects to the administra- 
 tion of justice in Scotland. I should be happy to witness a still farther 
 improvement; I should be glad to see a sheriff depute residing within 
 his county, holding his court himself, and not leaving it to be held by 
 his substitute; and I think the system, in its main principle, and thus 
 improved, could be introduced into this country with the highest ad- 
 vantage. Those courts are found to have worked well in Scotland, 
 and to afford cheap and convenient justice. The Sheriff's Court there 
 is competent to entertain nearly all ordinary causes of actions all 
 actions of debt to any amount actions of damages, for defamation, 
 assault, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, criminal conversa- 
 tion, trespass, trover, seduction, and almost all actions of tort. Now, 
 let us look to the working of this system upon an average of three 
 years the years 1821, 1822, and 1823 there were 22,000 some odd 
 hundred causes tried in the Sheriffs' Courts in Scotland, in each year, 
 for the amount of 5 and upwards this was of course exclusive of 
 such matters as were tried before justices of the peace. Take the 
 proportion between England and Scotland, assuming that the law 
 were the same here, and we might say that we should have six times 
 as many in England that is to say 130,000. That amounts to many 
 more than the number of actions brought in England to a vast many 
 more than the number tried for I have shown that not more than 
 7000, out of the 80,000 commenced, have been brought to trial. Of 
 these 22,000 in Scotland, somewhere about 12,000 were disposed of
 
 LOCAL COURTS. 619 
 
 in the absence of the defendant, being what \ve should call in Eng- 
 land undefended causes; and somewhere about 10,000 were disposed 
 ofinforo cnnlentioso. From the decision of these courts there is an 
 appeal to the Court of Session; but the number of appeals is small. It 
 is one in 117 of the actions brought: one in 53 of the actions brought 
 to trial. The house will see, then, how much satisfaction this system 
 has given in Scotland; and from that I think I may draw the conclu- 
 sion, not a fanciful one, that the only cases in which the decisions of 
 the county courts are not allowed to be final, are actions of import- 
 ance actions in which difficult questions of law are raised, or actions 
 in which there is involved sufficient interest to tempt the unsuccessful 
 party to appeal. Taking the number of cases, and the value of property 
 involved in them, brought in the county court of Lanark, which 
 includes Glasgow, it will be found that 500,000 worth of property is 
 adjudicated upon yearly by that court. Taking the same proportion 
 for England, and multiplying it by six, we shall have an amount of 
 3,000,000 sterling, which would be disposed of yearly, if the same 
 system prevailed here. 
 
 And now, have we not, let us ask, something to learn from this 
 statement? May we not put to ourselves the question, " Can we not 
 amend our own system?" I do not say, do this because it has been 
 tried and found to answer in Scotland; I do not ask you to import the 
 law of Scotland into England. No; I ask you only to revert to your 
 own ancient laws to those laws which were established in England 
 before they became the laws of Scotland. If the Scotch continue 
 those laws and find them, to answer, all that I wish to argue from this 
 fact is, not that for this reason the English should re-adopt them, but 
 only that it might be advisable to consider whether to a mischief, 
 which it is admitted does exist, this remedy is not the best we could 
 apply. 
 
 And here, if the House will permit me, I should wish to state what 
 is the expense of proceedings in the county courts of Scotland. I 
 have examined this matter, and found that, where the sum in ques- 
 tion amounts to 12, and where there is no litigation whore, as we 
 should say, the cause was undefended the expense is 10s.; where 
 the sum amounts to 25, the expense is 15*.; where the sum amounts 
 to 50, the expense is 15.9.; and where the sum is as high as 100, 
 the expense is not more than 20*. This is in cases in which there is 
 no litigation, and where decrees are pronounced in the absence of the 
 defendant. Where the cause is defended and the matter litigated, if 
 the sum in dispute amounts to 12, the expense is 5, and the party 
 who is successful, is only 5*. out of pocket. If the sum in dispute 
 amounts lo 25 or 50, the expense is greater; but still the successful 
 party is only lO.s. out of pocket; and where the sum amounts to .Lioo, 
 the costs would amount only to 13, and on taxation they would not 
 be reduced below 12. 
 
 Now, I cannot help envying Scotland this cheap justice; tor cheap 
 I must call it, when a man can recover 100 for an outlay of J-13 
 instead of 1G(), which would be the cost of proceedings in England;
 
 620 LAW REFORM. 
 
 when, moreover, tliis man would pocket the whole of the 100 ex- 
 cept 20s., instead of throwing away one half of the 100, as a man 
 must here, even though he should obtain a verdict and a judgment in 
 his favour. With all my partiality, and with all rny prejudices in 
 favour of the English system, I cannot help envying Scotland this part 
 of her law. Is it, then, possible so to extend the jurisdiction, so to 
 amend the constitution of the county courts of England, as to make 
 them capable of bestowing the same advantages? Is not this a ques- 
 tion worthy of our most serious consideration? I feel that I am 
 talcing up too much time of the House, and yet the importance of the 
 subject leads me still further into detail. It is the greatest possible 
 error to imagine that inferior suitors ought to have inferior judges; 
 that when questions are to be decided respecting persons of superior 
 rank, wealth, and intelligence, men of superior intellect and station 
 should be provided for that purpose; that when a matter of 100 
 or upwards is to be decided, a high and distinguished judge should be 
 employed for the purpose; but that in a matter only involving two, 
 three, five, or six pounds, any one will do for a judge, a sheriff, or a 
 sheriff's assessor, or whatever name he may bear that any one will 
 answer to preside in a court for the decision of such petty concerns, 
 whether he be a man qualified or unqualified, a man of sense or a 
 man of no sense; for the poor man, it seems to be the opinion, that it 
 does not signify what sort of judicature he has to decide his causes. 
 To my mind no notions appear to be more crude than these. Forty 
 shillings may be of more importance to the poor man than the sum 
 for which the great man litigates; the poor man contests not only for 
 the sake of the sum at issue, but that he may not be subject to wrong 
 and oppression; and he feels that oppression the more grievous and 
 intolerable, seeing that it is an evil reserved for the class to which he 
 himself belongs. It is not always for the sum disputed that lie goes 
 to law; he proceeds in resistance of wrong and oppression, and he 
 sues as readily for 2*. as for 40s. In this frame of mind, then, he 
 goes away from court as much dissatisfied as the wealthier suitor who 
 has lost 1000; and, give me leave to say, he has a right to be dis- 
 satisfied, and his is a dissatisfaction which will not be appeased other- 
 wise than by a full supply of that for which he has gone before his 
 judge justice. I know these judges in the courts of requests do good 
 I say they do good by comparison better something of justice 
 than nothing it maybe slovenly justice, but so precious a thing is 
 justice, that I should rather have even slovenly justice than the abso- 
 lute, peremptory, and inflexible denial of all justice. It happens that 
 tradesmen, who know nothing of law, and who may not have much 
 occupation in their own business, preside in these courts of requests, 
 and administer justice as well as might be expected. I say it is bet- 
 ter to have these than to have none. There are 240 of those courts, 
 with jurisdiction of from 40*. to 5; but that is not enough; the sys- 
 tem of cheap justice ought to be more widely extended. 
 
 I shall now advert to a prevailing error that opinion which goes 
 to recommend the use of a local appellate jurisdiction. I think it open
 
 LOCAL COURTS. 621 
 
 to this, among other objections that it would lead to one system of 
 law for one di>trict, and a different system for another. I may here 
 step aside to observe, that I wish the appellate jurisdiction received 
 more attention in the quarter which ought to attend to it, than I find 
 it does; and while upon this subject, I cannot help expressing a desire, 
 with reference to Colonial appeals, that there should be upon the Privy 
 Council some judges, who, by their knowledge of, and residence in, the 
 Colonies, may have acquired some acquaintance with their manners 
 and habits, as well as their laws and regulations, instead of that body, 
 as it now does, knowing nothing of the feelings of the people whence 
 those appeals come. I have thrown out, in passing, these few observa- 
 tions on the nature of the appellate jurisdiction, and the evils which in 
 it seem to me to require remedy, although that branch of the adminis- 
 tration of justice is not immediately connected with the question before 
 me.* While, however, I am on that part of the subject, I may as well 
 say a few words on the nature of the appellate jurisdiction, as it ope- 
 rates on our brethren of Scotland, who have, in my opinion, very great 
 reason to complain of the practice which sends them, in all cases of the> 
 last resort, to the House of Lords in this country. I do think that the 
 anomaly which this practice presents in the case of Scotland an 
 anomaly which has existed ever since the Union affords them very 
 reasonable ground of complaint; and the patience with which they have 
 borne the evil, has always appeared to me quite unaccountable. Our 
 neighbours seem to be well aware of the nature of their rights, and 
 to be by no means unwilling to enter into litigation, as, indeed, all per- 
 sons have a right, nay a duty, to do, who feel that they are wronged; 
 and I confess, I can explain their patient endurance of the evil I have 
 described, and which must be so great an obstacle to their attaining 
 cheap and substantial justice, only by supposing it to have been owing 
 to a concurrence of accidental circumstances. In the first place, there 
 were not many appeals immediately after the Union; and in the next 
 place, there happened soon after that time to be a succession of Lord 
 Chancellors in this country, who, to the very highest fame as lawyers 
 at the English Bar who, to a reputation paramount above that of all 
 their contemporaries, and which at once pointed them out as the most 
 tit for being raised to such an eminence added (hat other it appears 
 a most essential qualification, a thorough knowledge of the nature 
 and the practice of Scotch appeals, from having been during many years 
 of their lives, employed in them as advocates. First, there was Lord 
 Hardwicke, who, in addition to the amplest qualifications for the per- 
 formance of the duties of Lord Chancellor as an English lawyer, pos- 
 sessed the reputation of being well acquainted with the law adminis- 
 tered in Scotch appeals. Then there came Lord Mansfield, who in 
 addition to the greatest name as a lawyer, was himself a Scotchman, 
 and long employed as an advocate in Scotch cases. Then there fol- 
 lowed, after the interval of Lords Halhurst and Thurlow, Lord Longh- 
 borongh, also an eminent Scotch lawyer. To these eminent men suc- 
 
 * The Judicial Committee Act of 1833 has now introduced this reform.
 
 622 LAW REFORM. 
 
 ceeded Lord Eldon a man who, beside standing higher in reputation 
 as an English lawyer than any judge since the time of Lord Coke 
 himself; who, beside, I say, being marvellously and supereminently 
 skilled in every branch of English law, added to his extraordinary ac- 
 quirements, that of being learned in every part of the law of Scotland, 
 having been employed for full fifteen years of his life in almost every 
 appeal which was heard before the House of Lords. It is to a suc- 
 cession of these great men in England, as Lord Chancellors, that we 
 are doubtless to look, when called on to account for the patience with 
 which our brethren of Scotland have hitherto borne the inconvenience 
 of the system of appeals. But if the time should ever come when a 
 person should fill the situation of judge in the last resort, who, having 
 but a moderate acquaintance with English law, gained his first know- 
 ledge of Scotch law from being called upon, by any arrangement that 
 might be made, to decide on the merits of appeals from the decision 
 of the courts of Scotland, then the anomaly would be seen in its full 
 force, though the means of accounting for it would be gone. I cannot, 
 indeed, avoid let it give offence where it may expressing my opin- 
 ion on this occasion, that the nature of the arrangements, with respect 
 to the disposal of Scotch appeals, is a subject extremely worthy of the 
 best, the most serious, and the earliest consideration of his Majesty's 
 government. 
 
 I have been somewhat drawn aside from the question before me, 
 by the observations I have felt it my duty to make on the nature of 
 the appellate jurisdiction; but having said thus much, I shall now 
 proceed to explain in what manner I propose carrying into execution 
 the principles I have laid down, and to show how a tribunal may be 
 constituted, through which the people of this country may be able to 
 obtain that most desirable object, cheap justice, in the speediest man- 
 ner, in causes of a moderate amount. What I suggest then, is, that 
 there be appointed in each county or district, as the case may be, a 
 lawyer of a certain number of years' standing, who is to be the judge 
 in the last instance, in causes under a certain sum, and in the first 
 instance, under certain regulations, in causes over that sum. In the 
 first case, I would enable this judge, in all cases where the sum in 
 litigation is under 10, to call the parties before him to examine the 
 claimant as well as his adversary to dispose of the claim to give 
 judgment to award execution and to specify the time when, and 
 the amounts in which the instalments in furtherance of that execu- 
 tion are to be paid. Above the sum of 10, I would give any party 
 power to go before the same judge, who should be authorized to call 
 on the adverse party to answer, both having power to employ pro- 
 fessional assistance if they should deem it necessary, and to determine 
 the matter in dispute, and examine witnesses if they should think fit. 
 I would limit the jurisdiction of the officer, or judge as I call him, in 
 this instance, to the sum of 100 in point of value; but I would not 
 limit him with respect to the nature of the causes to be tried for I 
 would give him jurisdiction over all causes except those relating to 
 freehold or copyhold property. I would give him jurisdiction in all
 
 LOCAL COURTS. 623 
 
 matters of torts, as well as of debts; but I would make his decision 
 in these cases open to appeal, final in all matters under 10 open 
 to review in all causes from 10 up to 100, and in all cases of tort. 
 
 I now proceed to show in what way I think this appeal should be 
 managed, and I cannot but think that it would be a great relief to 
 the suitors if it should lie to the judges on circuit, and not to the 
 superior courts of Westminster-hall. There might, however, be good 
 reasons in some cases for not bringing the appeal before a particular 
 judge going circuit, and I should therefore remedy that inconvenience 
 by allowing the option of an appeal to Westminster-hall, with certain 
 restrictions only as to costs. I would allow, therefore, an appeal 
 either to Westminster-hall or the judges on circuit; but, if the party 
 carried the cause to the more distant and expensive tribunal, I would 
 allow the opposing party double, or, in some cases, perhaps, treble 
 costs. It is hardly necessary to add at least to those professional 
 gentlemen who hear me that by these appeals I mean motions for 
 new trials in all cases where the judge may have ruled a disputed 
 point of law, or the jury be supposed to have decided contrary to 
 the evidence. In these cases I would allow a motion to be made to 
 the judge going the ensuing circuit, for a new trial, notice being 
 given to the other side that it is intended to make the motion, in 
 order that he may be present at the assizes, and have counsel ready 
 to argue the case if he thinks fit. I do not mean that this is to be 
 according to the practice usual in the courts of common law, where 
 the party, without notice to the other side, obtains a rule to show 
 cause, and the matter is afterwards heard upon that rule being served 
 on the other side; but I mean it to be according to the long-established 
 practice of the equity courts, where the notice is served before the 
 hearing, and the judge has an opportunity of knowing the whole 
 merits of the case by having both parties before him. 
 
 I am now giving an outline of the measure which I think neces- 
 sary to accomplish my object; but I have not yet mentioned the 
 necessity of having recourse to trial by jury. Far be it from me to 
 say that there are not many cases in which the trial by jury might 
 fairly be dispensed with; but when in connection with the question 
 of trial by jury, the name of Mr. Jeremy Bentham is forced on my 
 recollection, a man, whose merit as a philosopher, and as a benefac- 
 tor of mankind, is admitted by all of that man who is both most 
 distinguished as a lawyer, and foremost amongst the advocates of 
 legal reform whose name will go down to posterity with an honour- 
 able remembrance of which few, if any, are more deserving when 
 I mention that name, I think, after this humble but sincere tribute to 
 his great and disinterested benevolence, I shall detract but little from 
 it when I stale that I do not agree with him in all the reforms which 
 he proposes in our law. I diller from him upon some points, only in 
 degree, Mr. Bentham going further than I should be disposed to 
 follow; and on other points, I differ from him in kind, as when I am 
 not prepared to concur with him in his view of trial by jury, lint 
 the necessity of that mode of trial in all cases, I deny with him. It
 
 624 LAW REFORM. 
 
 is not from any indifference to the incalculable advantages of this 
 most important institution that I now state my opinion that in many 
 of the actions which would probably be brought in the county court, 
 I think that mode of trial not applicable, and therefore that it may be 
 dispensed with to the great advantage of both parties. In cases, 
 indeed, where there is conflicting testimony in cases where it may 
 be necessary to contrast documentary with oral evidence in cases of 
 that kind I would have a jury, for I know of no mode so perfect, 
 where there is to be a decision on contradictory evidence, as that of 
 assembling a number of men I will not say twelve, for there is 
 nothing in the particular number of different feelings and habits of 
 thinking, and let them, after an investigation of the whole case, pro- 
 nounce upon it by their verdict; but I would not have that verdict 
 the verdict of the majority, for, paradoxical as it may seem, I would 
 have a forced unanimity among the jury. Were it otherwise, there 
 would never be that patient investigation which is necessary to come 
 at the truth. There would be cries of " Question," such as are 
 sometimes heard in larger and less judicial assemblies. There is, in 
 short, no more effectual way of coming at the truth than such a trial 
 in such cases. In them, then, I would have the matter decided by 
 the jury. I would also have juries in cases where damages are to be 
 assessed, in cases of tort, seduction, assault, and trespass, and even in 
 attacks on property, as well as in personal wrongs; but there- are many 
 cases in which they might well be dispensed with. I repeat, that I 
 state this not from undervaluing, in any degree, the advantages of 
 that great institution; for 1 hope the time is not far distant when it 
 will become general throughout every part of the empire. I am 
 aware that it is difficult to classify those cases, in which the decision 
 should be left to the judge without the aid of the jury. And this 
 difficulty presents itself, not from not having duly considered the 
 subject, for I have given it long and anxious consideration, but 
 the difficulty is not of a nature to prevent the adoption of the plan. 
 I would allow the judge to decide in all cases not exceeding 10, 
 whether or not it ought to be sent to a jury; and when those improve- 
 ments shall have been made in pleading, which are recommended by 
 the Common Law Commissioners, when the story of the plaintiff 
 and the answer of the defendant shall be laid before the court in such 
 a manner, as that the judge can at once comprehend the whole, and 
 when plaintiff and defendant respectively know what they have to 
 prove and to answer, it will not be difficult for the judge to say to 
 them, " I think this is a case which I may decide without the assist- 
 ance of a jury;" but I would not allow the judge to be the sole 
 arbiter of the propriety of dispensing with that mode of trial. It 
 should also be left to the consent of both parties to the suit; and if 
 they agree, then the cause should be decided by the judge alone. I 
 have stated that I would give the judge of this court jurisdiction in 
 most kinds of civil actions; and when it is considered that the present 
 state of the law, and the practice under it, entail an enormous but 
 essential expense, for carrying into effect its administration from dis-
 
 LOCAL COURTS. 625 
 
 tant parts of the country, I contend that it is imperative on Parlia- 
 ment to give such relief as that which I have pointed out. 
 
 Now, with respect to the qualifications of the judge who should be 
 selected to preside in those county courts, I think he ought to be of 
 considerable learning and skill, and of some practice of the law; for 
 without that, one great object of those courts, effectual administration 
 of justice, would not be obtained. He ought also to be well paid; 
 for if the public expects that his whole time should be devoted to his 
 duties, they ought to pay him well for it. I would suggest that he 
 should sit once a month for ten months of the year, and that six of 
 those sittings should be in the chief town of the county, and that the 
 four other sittings should be in such towns in distant parts of the 
 county as would bring the administration of justice home to every 
 man; and thus, twice in the year at least, a suitor in any part of the 
 county would have an opportunity of having his claim tried without 
 being put to the trouble of going to any inconvenient distance from 
 his home. The advantage of a court in many things similar to that 
 which I propose to establish, has been long felt in Ireland, where a 
 judge, called "the Assistant Barrister," goes through the county at 
 stated periods of the year, holding sessions for the trial of actions for 
 small sums, but excluding all trials connected with the freehold. The 
 assistant barrister has also the power of deciding certain cases with- 
 out the aid of a jury; but in those cases where he thinks juries neces- 
 sary, they are summoned, and the case disposed of with their assist- 
 ance. This court was instituted in 1796, and has since been found of 
 great convenience to the public in disposing of small causes, which 
 would otherwise have to be sent, at much greater expense to the 
 parties, for the decision of the superior courts. 
 
 I have said that there should be a power of moving for a new trial, 
 in certain cases which may have been tried before this new court, and 
 that the motion might be made before (lie judges of assize. It would, 
 in that case, be necessary for the new judge to attend the assizes, and be 
 named in the commission. He should sit on the bench, and, as occa- 
 sion required, should read his notes of the case in which the new trial 
 was sought; but he should have no voice in the decision. Tire judge 
 of assize alone should decide on the question. Keason and experi- 
 ence have shown to those who are conversant with the practice of 
 our courts, the very great inconvenience of allowing the judge, from 
 whose opinion an appeal is made, to have a voice in the decision on 
 that appeal. It often happens, that he givos a tone to the feeling of 
 the court in favour of the opinion which he has given in the rourt 
 below; and the result is, in some instances, where a judge has fallen 
 into an error for judges may err as well as other men that the 
 error is adopted by his brother judges, and thus confirmed by the 
 decision of the whole court. I have seen this practice lead, in some 
 instances, to decisions which I have no doubt on earth were errone- 
 ous; and I have not been the only person present, on such occasions, 
 who have come to the same conclusion. This ix-vor would have 
 happened had the appeal been made from the opinion of a judge 
 VOL. i. 53
 
 626 LAW REFORM. 
 
 who was not a member of the court. I, for these reasons, would not 
 give to the judges of the new county courts any voice in the decision 
 of the appeal which might be taken from them to the court of assize. 
 By the adoption of this practice, with respect to them, there would 
 be established a uniformity of practice in those courts throughout the 
 country, and we should not have one mode of administering the law 
 in one county, and a different one in another. 
 
 It may, perhaps, be objected, that this establishment of so many 
 courts would entail a very considerable expense on the country; for 
 that, beside the judge in each court, there must be a registrar and 
 clerk, and one or two ushers. No doubt the appointment of such 
 officers would be necessary; for, if we are to have establishments, 
 they should be complete, to answer the proposed end. But the ex- 
 pense of the whole on the country will be but trifling, when compared 
 with the important advantages which must accrue to the public. I 
 would suggest that the judge should have a salary of 1500 a-year. 
 I observe my honourable and learned friend, the Solicitor-General, 
 smiles at this, as if he considered it too much; but if the public are 
 to have the whole of the time of a professional man of talent and 
 experience, they ought not to expect it without giving an adequate 
 remuneration. Taking the whole expenses of the judges, registrars, 
 clerks, and other officers, I estimate that it will not exceed from 
 120,000 to 130,000 a-year for the whole kingdom. Now, in judg- 
 ing of this, I would beg the attention of the House for a moment to 
 what is the expense of the judicial administration in France. In that 
 country there are between 3000 and 4000 local magistrates scattered 
 over the whole country, called juges de paix, who have jurisdic- 
 tion in actions for small sums. The expense of these amounts to 
 121,000 a-year. There are next the courts of First Instance for 
 the several arrondissements, amounting to from 300 to 400, and hav- 
 ing from 1600 to 1700 judges; the annual expense of these amounts 
 to 125,000. There are then the several Courts of Appeal, at an 
 annual expense of 70,000; and beside all these, and over them is the 
 Court of Cassation, in Paris, which is a court of appeal in the last 
 resort, or rather, a court of error, which costs the country 25,000 
 annually, making, in the whole, for the civil administration of justice, 
 an annual expense of from 300,000 to 400,000. And if to this be 
 added the expense of the administration of criminal justice, it will 
 amount to about 525,000 a-year; or, taking it pound for pound, 
 and considering the comparative value of money in that cheap 
 country, and in this dear one, it is equal to about 800,000 of our 
 money. But why do I mention this? Merely to show that our 
 neighbours do not think that any price is too high to pay for an effec- 
 tual administration of justice; and most certainly it would be ex- 
 tremely difficult to convince me that the price ought for an instant to 
 be put into competition with the advantages which would result to 
 the public from such a system. Let it be considered that if the sum 
 should amount to 150,000 a-year, it would be still less than three 
 weeks' proportion of the extra expenditure to which the country was
 
 LOCAL COURTS. 627 
 
 subjected in the last year of the war, beside the cost of the national 
 debt, of the civil list, and all the ordinary expenditure of the year. 
 I do not mean to say that the extra expense was no more than 
 50,000 per week; what I mean is, that three weeks' amount of the 
 extra expenditure of that year would, if taken into the market, be 
 sufficient to purchase an annuity of 150,000 for ever. I do not 
 intend to inquire how far that expense was or was not necessary, hut 
 I contend that the sum I have named would purchase by far the 
 greatest blessing that Parliament ever conferred upon the people a 
 cheap, speedy, and certain administration of justice. 
 
 I have said that the new judges will not act merely as presiding 
 judges; they will also have to act as arbitrators, and in that way 
 many cases will bo settled without ever going to a public decision, 
 and thus a great saving of time and expense will be made to the 
 parties. This of itself is a most important consideration. What is so 
 likely to give satisfaction, or to prevent lawsuits from misdecision, as 
 the enabling a person to decide cases as a judge would decide them, 
 but sitting in the character of an arbitrator? 
 
 Sir, there is a subject far which I have hardly left myself strength, 
 and I am sure I have left the House no patience to go into it, but to 
 which I shall very generally and cursorily refer I mean the subject 
 of Conciliation. In many foreign countries, courts of conciliation are 
 established, with a view to the prevention of lawsuits, by having the 
 parties called before them by talking to them familiarly, kindly, and 
 privately by telling one that it is very foolish to go into court where 
 the facts are so clear against him, and that he will lose his cause by 
 telling another that he ought not any longer to resist payment, as it 
 is quite clear that he is wrong; in short, by giving tluj parties sound 
 advice, to which they may attach the weight that does and will always 
 belong to the disinterested counsel of a prudent and worthy man, and 
 of one experienced in such disputes. It has been found in some coun- 
 tries not, I confess, in all that the best possible results have accrued 
 from such a system. Where the reference has been compulsory, the 
 experiment has entirely failed. In France, it has signally failed. I 
 have the authority of not only many learned and excellent persons, 
 but I have also the distinct admission of M. Levasseur, in his Manuel, 
 in which he says " That where the parties settle their differences 
 before the court of conciliation without going farther, the principle of 
 the measure is fulfilled le veil du Icgislultur eat cotn/tle/;" hut ho 
 adds, " these cases are infinitely rare." I have to make, also, <-xcop- 
 tion of the Netherlands and Holland, for the result of the experiments 
 of the code, since it has been applied to those countries, has bt-cu so 
 exactly the same, that they have resolved not to renew it. I under- 
 stand that in Sweden the measure has been attended with Iwttor suc- 
 cess. Hut in Denmark it has succeeded best of all; and, if 1 am not 
 misinformed, in that country the going before a judge of conciliation 
 is entirely optional. I know that in Switzerland, at least in two parts 
 of it I mean Geneva and the Pays du Vaud the exprrimnii was 
 tried, and was attended with success. The Codo Napoleon lulled, as
 
 628 LAW REFORM. 
 
 there was in it compulsory reconcilement that is, no person could go 
 into a higher court before he called his adversary to the court of con- 
 ciliation, and obtained a prods verbal; if the adversary did not appear, 
 he paid a fine of ten francs, and the other got a certificate, and was 
 allowed to go before a higher court. In Denmark, where the thing 
 is more optional, and where the court does not call the parties before 
 them, I find that on an average of three years, 1825, 1826, and 1827, 
 one-fourth of the actions brought into those courts were terminated 
 by the withdrawal of proceedings, or by the parties being reconciled. 
 The returns do not specify the exact numbers of each of those stopped 
 by conciliation, or by the parties withdrawing proceedings, being 
 hopeless of success. In one instance, however, I have that return, 
 and I find that the numbers are very nearly equal, that is to say, that 
 between one-seventh and one-eighth of the cases not tried were settled 
 by the process of conciliation. 
 
 Now, I propose adding to the power of the judge the right of call- 
 ing the parties, if they please, before him; that is, if one is desirous of 
 it, and the other has no objection. I propose that they should go 
 before him; that it should be compulsory to receive his opinion; that 
 he should act as judge of conciliation, and endeavour to reconcile their 
 differences. I will explain in one moment why I regard this measure 
 as desirable, and by no means impracticable; and I can assure the 
 house, that the suggestions which I have offered are founded strictly 
 on practical experience. When a court is resorted to, in many cases, 
 no person is more likely to be led into error as to the probable termi- 
 nation of the cause than the party interested. In almost all instances 
 he is more or less misled by the advice he receives. I do not say that 
 gentlemen of the bar give opinions that the action is maintainable, 
 when they know that it is not. God forbid! I believe that there 
 is no set of men less apt to do so; I believe they are more apt to 
 dissuade to throw cold water upon law to give doubtful opinions, 
 and offer discouraging advice. I say this is the common course of the 
 profession. I say that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it is so. 
 I need hardly say it happens to all respectable men: I need hardly 
 say when it happens not, a man is scarcely respectable. But, great 
 as my feeling is for the profession strongly prepossessed as I am 
 with the belief of its high honour, of its great integrity of all those 
 qualities which entitle it to respect and much as I hope that the 
 exceptions are rare yet I will not say that there are no exceptions, 
 even in that profession to which I have the honour to belong. I will 
 not take upon myself to say, that it is an impossibility to find a man 
 at the bar who will give an opinion to encourage, when he ought to 
 discourage still less will I take upon myself to deny that there are 
 always to be found men, in the other branches of the profession, who 
 will go to that man to get his opinion, and who, if they cannot get 
 such an opinion, will substitute their own for it, and tell their client 
 that he is sure to gain that which they ought to know there is every 
 probability he will lose. But this I do know, that we have men 
 every day come before counsel, previous to going into court; that a
 
 LOCAL COURTS. 629 
 
 consultation is holclen,and those present lift up their hands and throw 
 up their eyes, and say, who could have advised such an action? and 
 that upon other occasions, on the part of the defendant, it is said 
 how could you go on so long with it? The reason is neither more 
 nor less than this that no sooner have they read the case, than, with- 
 out any further consultation together, each man comes into the con- 
 sulting-room, with his mind made up, that they have not the shadow 
 of a case, and thus the poor client is allowed to go into a court only 
 to be ruined. This happens every day, and it happens often enough 
 to make one wish that it never happened at all. There are cases 
 where the advice of the counsel is kept back from the client; other 
 cases, where the favourable opinion is obtained on false statement of 
 facts; and in all these cases, the man most ignorant of the chance of 
 success, or failure, is the unfortunate client thus dragged into a court 
 of justice. I ought not to say he is always dragged he is sometimes 
 coaxed; they who ought to put him on his guard, mislead and urge 
 him on; and he finds, too late, that he has been deceived to his ruin. 
 The men who do so ignorantly and they are not a few are not of 
 course so culpable as they who do so knowingly and willingly. Even 
 my respect for that branch of the profession to which I allude I 
 mean solicitors and attorneys will not allow me to deny that I have 
 frequently seen instances, in both classes, of such cases, produced 
 more frequently by the ignorance of the attorney, than by a know- 
 ledge that his client must lose. In these cases, if you could separate 
 the client from the attorney and the counsel, and get him aside, and 
 tell him that, if he goes on with his suit, he must be disappointed 
 and defeated, I am sanguine enough to expect that the ruin which 
 now often happens would be saved to the unfortunate and ill-advised 
 clients. 
 
 This system which I have submitted to the House, I trust respect- 
 fully, founded as it is upon experience, would produce the best results. 
 I have hopes, and I think they are not visionary hopes, that great 
 benefit would accrue to parties from having conversation with an in- 
 dividual of knowledge and of undoubted respectability. Whether, 
 not merely that part of the subject which relates to conciliation and 
 arbitration, by publicly appointed arbitrators, but the whole subject of 
 affording the means of obtaining cheap justice, will be approved of 
 by the legislature, I know riot; but this I know, that those who reject 
 it are imperatively called upon by the state of the case to point out 
 another remedy. I care not for the name. If you reform the county 
 courts, it will only hamper you with certain forms, with obsolete 
 rules, and with many inconveniences, which had much better be got 
 rid of; for nothing is so useless as preserving the shadow when the 
 substance is gone it only disappoints, and harasses, and vexes. Hut 
 call it by what name you will, the substance of this measure is impe- 
 ratively required. The exigencies of suitors will no longer allow us 
 to withhold it from them. Of this I am as much persuaded as I am 
 of my existence, or that I am standing hero addressing this House. 
 The people have a right to justice they are crying out for it they
 
 630 LAW REFORM. 
 
 distrust the government for want of it they distrust all plans of re- 
 form, whether legal or political reform, because of it; and so long as 
 they feel this want will they continue to cry out and to distrust. 
 
 I have heard it said, that when one lifts up his voice against things 
 that are, and wishes for a change, he is raising clamour against exist- 
 ing institutions, a clamour against our venerable establishments, a 
 clamour against the law of the land; but this is no clamour against 
 the one or the other it is a clamour against the abuse of them all. 
 It is a clamour raised against the grievances that are felt. Mr. Burke, 
 who was no friend to popular excitement, who was no ready tool of 
 agitation, no hot-headed enemy of existing establishments, no under- 
 valuer of the wisdom of our ancestors, no scoffer against institutions 
 as they are, has said, and it deserves to be fixed in letters of gold over 
 the hall of every assembly which calls itself a legislative body, 
 " Where there is abuse there ought to be clamour, because it is better 
 to have our slumbers broken by the fire-bell, than to perish amidst the 
 flames in our bed." I have been told by some who have little objec- 
 tion to the clamour, that I am a timid and a mock reformer, and by 
 others, if I go on firmly and steadily, and do not allow myself to be 
 drawn aside by either one outcry or another, and care for neither, 
 that it is a rash and dangerous innovation, which I propound, and 
 that I am taking for the subject of my reckless experiments things 
 which are the objects of all men's veneration. " I disregard the one as 
 much as I disregard the other of these charges. I know the path of 
 the reformer is not easy; honourable it may be it may lead to 
 honour; but it is obstructed by the secret workings of coadjutors; and, 
 above all, it is beset by the base slanders of those who, I venture to 
 say some of them at least know better than others the falsehood 
 of the charges which they bring against me. But I have not pro- 
 ceeded in this course rapidly, hastily, or rashly; for I have actually 
 lived to see myself charged with being in name a reformer, but in 
 truth in league with the enemies of reform; in secret and corrupt 
 league with those who batten on the abuses which I denounce. 
 
 It has been asserted that I have so acted in order to obtain high 
 professional advancement I, \vho have refused the highest judicial 
 functions I, who, at the very time those slanders were propagated, 
 was in the act of preventing such a proposition from being made to 
 me upon political principle upon public principle upon party 
 principle as well as upon personal feelings. Did I regard the slan- 
 der? Was I stung with such false opprobrium? Did I change my 
 colour, or falter in my course, or did I quicken that course? Not I, 
 indeed 
 
 False honour charms and lyinjr slander scares 
 Whom, but the false and faulty]* 
 
 It has been the lot of all men, in all ages, who have aspired at the 
 honour of guiding, instructing, or mending mankind, to have their 
 
 * Falsus honor juvat et mendax infamia terret 
 Quern, nisi mendosum et mendacen?
 
 LOCAL COURTS. 631 
 
 paths beset by every persecution from adversaries by ever miscon- 
 struction from friends: No quarter from the one no charitable con- 
 struction from the other. To be misconstrued, misrepresented, borne 
 down, till it was in vain to bear down any longer, lias been their fate. 
 But truth will survive, and calumny has its day. I say, that if this 
 be the fate of the reformer if he be the object of misrepresentation, 
 may not an inference be drawn favourable to myself? Taunted by 
 the enemies of reform, as being too rash; by the over-zealous friends 
 of reform, as being too slow or too cold; there is every reason for pre- 
 suming that I have chosen the right course. A reformer must pro- 
 ceed steadily in his career; not misled on the one hand by panegyric, 
 nor discouraged by slander on the other. He wants no praise. I 
 would rather say " \Vo to him when all men speak well of him." 
 I shall go on in the course which I have laid down for myself; pur- 
 suing the footsteps of those who have gone before us who have left 
 us their instructions and success their instructions to guide our walk, 
 and their success to cheer our spirits. 
 
 I move, sir, for leave to bring in a Bill for the establishment of Local 
 Judicatures in certain cases in England. 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
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