Another objection which he should mention to the law as it now stood on this subject was, that corruption of blood consequent upon high treason, by which the property of the offender was forfeited to his descendants, without going to the crown. This he considered as an improper and useless aggravation of the punishment; and he might refer to several places in sir William Blackstone's Commentaries, in which this part of the law of high treason was reprobated in the most pointed terms. Sir S. Romilly then moved for leave to bring in a bill to repeal the 10th and 11th of king William, for making it capital to steal in a dwelling-house above the value of five shillings, and another to repeal that part of the punishment of high treason relating to embowelling,

These bills were allowed to be brought in, and the first passed through the house of commons, but was thrown out in the other house. The second was lost in the house of commons.

Feb. 18.-Earl Bathurst, in the house of lords, said, that though the American correspondence was voluminous, he should not trouble the house at any length. The address he should move was not likely to lead to any difference of opinion. A blockade, by notification, of the Chesapeake and Delaware was not earlier adopted, because there was a contract for the supply of flour to the peninsula from the American ports, and also to our West India islands. The noble lord then, referring to the declaration of war by America, said he believed it was precipitated by the expectation of intercepting our homeward-bound fleet from the West Indies; for commodore Rodgers sailed immediately upon the eve of that decla

ration. While the British government showed a disposition to restore seamen who were proved to be natives of America, the United States government constantly refused to restore British seamen who had deserted. This was a proof that the American government was hostile to this country. They likewise claimed a right of cancelling the allegiance of subjects of other states. He alluded to their practice of granting letters of naturalization. For this purpose, all that was requisite was, for two persons stating themselves to be citizens of the United States, and vouching before a magistrate for a third to be a citizen, and having resided five years there obtained him a certificate of citizenship. These proofs might be fabricated, and no con trary interest existed in the courts to investigate them. It was impos sible, therefore, we could give up the right of impressment, upon which our maritime greatness de pended. His lordship concluded by moving an address to the prince regent, approving of the rejection of the proposition from America; lamenting the necessity of the war, but acknowledging its justice, and expressing a determination to support his royal highness in carrying on the war with vigour.

The marquis of Lansdowne was glad he could concur in the address, but regretted that, owing to the disposition of our naval force, such triumphs had been afforded to the Americans. War, once conimenced, ought to be vigorously prosecuted, that it might be sooner terminated.

Lord Melville said, whenever the detail was entered into, it was capable of proof that at the time of the breaking out of the war the force on the American station was amply

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sufficient

mented the honourable baronet on the temper and candour which he had that night displayed. He thought, however, that a measure of the nature of that proposed by the honourable baronet ought to come recom-nended by the crown; and that, unless in case of a very strong necessity, the house were not called upon to interpose in a matter of such delicacy.

kind should emanate from government; but he did think it highly expedient that some communication should have been made on the subject, to prevent the possibility of a conflict between parliament and the crown. If the honourable ba ronet's views were just, his argument went to this, that it would be necessary provisionally to appoint a general and permanent regency in all cases where there was not an heir apparent to the crown grown up, and ready to take upon him all the functions of royalty. The ho nourable mover seemed to think he was providing for a great constitutional object-he wished to get at a regency on an hereditary rather than on a parliamentary principle. But there were inconveniences attached to an exclusive adherence to either of these principles; and on the balance of those inconveniences, the house had twice decided, that it was their first and most imperious duty to provide for the safe return of the regal authority into the hands of the lawful king, in case of his being restored to a capacity for exercising its functions. If the hereditary principle were taken as the only one, it would lead to the establishment of a regency, without any such provision-without restriction or condition of any kind.

Mr. Brand thought it was no argument against the motion, that it did not come recommended from the crown. He could not but deprecate the mischiefs which the late interruption of royalty must have occasioned. He hoped that a plan would at length be digested, by which similar evils would in future be prevented, and that the country would never again witness those disgraceful scenes, when restrictions seemed to be imposed on the crown, with no other view but to show the people that the crown possessed powers with which it did not need to be invested. There was now but one life between the recurrence of the scenes which they had all so much lamented, and he thought they ought not to separate before providing against such an exigency. Mr. Wynne and Mr. Ponsonby both spoke in favour of the motion. Lord Castlereagh thought the measure not called for on any grounds either of necessity or expediency. If he were to argue the measure on the grounds of the honourable baronet, his motion seemed rather intended to invalidate the constitutional authority of the two former precedents of 1788 and 1810, than to provide for any immediate or probable emergency. So far he must give the motion his decided opposition. He admitted that it was not necessary for the constitution, that a measure of this

Mr. Whitbread enforced the necessity of some such measure as the present. The government had been twice carried on for some time, in the years 1801 and 1810, under the mask but without a shadow of royal authority. It was to prevent the recurrence of such an unconstitutional and dangerous assumption of power, that he had in 1811 brought forward a motion to inquire into those transactions, and to provide some remedy; but his proposition had been negatived. Ꮯ Ꮞ

The

The party heats and irritation which at that time prevailed, had been allayed: a strong practical proof that there could be no time more proper than the present for providing some remedy for the evil, was the temper and moderation with which this night's debate had been conducted. He should give his most hearty concurrence to the motion of the honourable baronet.

Sir F. Burdett expressed great satisfaction at finding that none of the leading constitutional principles which he had stated had been controverted. He was also gratified that his motion had been met by a direct negative, instead of being got rid of by the more ambiguous mode of the previous question. The answer of the noble lord opposite did not appear to subvert any one of his positions; all that it went to prove seemed to be, that "sufficient to the day is the evil thereof." Those evils which the noble lord affected to treat as so improbable and so inconsiderable, had however twice occurred within a very short period; yet the noble lord had given the name of a parliamentary proceeding to transactions which would have justified an impeachment for high treason. If indeed the crown made no essential part of the constitution-if its functions might be suspended at any time without inconvenience, or exercised by the ministers of the house of commons, then he would agree that his motion was unnecessary. The noble lord had talked with great Auency and eloquence on the line of argument which he (sir F. Burdett) had pursued, but he did not conceive that the distinction was very correct or satisfactory. It had been said that he had preferred the hereditary to the parlia

mentary principle. No: but he disapproved of acts which had been done when no parliament was sitting-of a course by which ministers, backed by a majority, afterwards took into their own hands the whole power of the state. The question between him and the noble lord was not the alternative of an hereditary or a parliamentary. proceeding, but simply, whether a parliamentary provision should not now be made to secure the hereditary succession of the crown in the line which the constitution so clearly pointed out? It was surely better that this question should be disposed of at present by cool and dispassionate discussion, than left to the hasty and intemperate decision of the moment, when the crown, as it had been before, would probably be seized upon by a party, and made the prize of a factious oligarchy.

The house then divided, when there appeared

For the motion

Against it

73 238

Majority against the motion 165

Feb. 24. The honourable Cochrane Johnstone rose, and said that he intended to submit a motion to the house on Monday next, relative to the proceedings ordered by his majesty to be instituted on the subject of her royal highness the princess of Wales. The hon. member was about to offer some remarks upon the importance of this matter, which, he said, affected even the succession to the throne itself, when the speaker interrupted him by stating, that it was not usual to enter into any discussion, in giving a notice, which could possibly create a debate. The honourable member then concluded` by observing, that he had thought

it his duty, and had accordingly done so, to transmit a copy of the proposition he intended to move to ministers, that they might be fully possessed of the line he meant to pursue.

Feb. 25.-Mr. Elliot moved that the resolution of June, in the last session, for taking into consideration the Roman catholic claims early in the present, be read; and it was read by the clerk accordingly.

Mr. Elliot then said, that he had this year been intrusted with the same commission with which he was honoured in the last: viz. to present the petition of the Roman catholics of England. He had requested that the resolution of the last parliament be read, because it was referred to in the petition, and because it was a record of a beneficial change in the opinions of parliament on this momentous subject. After frequent discussions, and as frequent discomfitures, in opposition to the sentiments of four of the most enlightened statesmen that modern times could boast, Pitt, Burke, Fox,, and Windham, the parliament of the united empire had, at length, nobly resolved to consider those claims which before it had refused to hear. On the same occasion last year, he had called the attention of the house to the peculiarly cruel situation of the Roman catholics of England. While in Canada catholics were allowed every privilege that a protestant enjoyed; while in Ireland they were permitted to hold immunities, in England a Roman catholic was excluded from all his civil rights. Here he could hold no military rank; and if he went to Ireland he might attain the rank of lieutenantcolonel, but on his return to his native land he would be subjected to all the penalties of the law. In

the navy his situation was equally unjust; he might command a ship while floating in the harbour of Cork, but if by accident he were shipwrecked on the coast of England, the merciless arm of the existing law was ready to snatch its prey. The cry that the constitution would be destroyed by the attack on the church, was now renewed, as if the church were a sort of a talisman of the constitution, by the mere touch of which the whole fabric in one instant would crumble to atoms. Among the signatures to the petition, would be noticed the names of some of the most illustrious families that adorned our annals, retaining still the religion of their ancestors; doctrines on which the establishment was once founded, and to which the discipline of the protestant was now in many respects similar. It should not be forgotten that the triumph over tyranny at Runnymede was obtained by ca. tholics over a king, who, prostrating himself before the papal chair, was sacrificing to its occupant his kingdom and his crown. Catholics fought and achieved the boasted victories of Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt; and catholics were at least essentially instrumental in the defeat of the Spanish armada, which had received the blessing of the supreme pontiff, and was securely sailing to conquest under his bull. At a much later period, catholics held seats in our legisla ture, and assisted in some of the most signal defeats of foreign and domestic enemies. He entreated the house not to allow it in future to be said, that they who not long since were seen maintaining the catholic government in Corsicathey who were now supporting the catholic authorities in Sicily-they who permitted the uncontrolled exercise of religion, without dis

abilities,