terations in the committee, was fi. nally rejected by the house. This bill was introduced upon the ground that the expositions of the treating act by the courts of law and committees of the house of commons were at variance, and that a declaratory act was therefore necessary, to remove the uncertainty to which such different constructions of the law had given rise. It was proposed by this bill to include in treating the conveyance of electors to and from the place of election at the expence of the candidates; the intention of which was, to enable men of moderate fortunes to embark in contests for parliament, without the ruinous expences usually attending contested elections; and as resident voters are commonly decided by mo. tives of local influence in giving their suffrages, while non-resident electors are ready to engage their votes to any one who will convey them to the place of election, this measure was also expected to increase the weight of the natural aristocracy of the country, and to diminish the influence of mere monied men in bo rough elections. Some of the arguments for the bill were not destitute of plausibility, but the objection fatal to it was, that it disfranchised nine-tenths of the freeholders in the large counties, and all the non-resident electors of cities and boroughs, by taking from them the means of conveyance to the place of election, which candidates at present afford them, and without which they can. not possibly exercise the elective franchise. According to a just remark of Mr. Fox, in his speech upon the bill," it was a bill in favour of candidates against the electors.".

Another bill, which shared the

same fate with the preceding, was the stipendiary curate's bill, than which one more unjust in its prin ciple, or more absurd in its provisions, was never obtruded upon parliament. This bill proceeded on the false and dangerous principle, that the legislature has a right to take the stipends of church incumbents, and expend them according to its notions of expediency. That church incumbents, as servants of the state, are compellable to perform any duties connected with their sacred func tions, which the legislature may chuse to impose upon them, is a position that will not be controverted; nor will it be denied, that the legislature is lawfully competent, prospectively, and with due regard to the interests of patrons, to take the patrimony of the church, and apply it to other uses than those to which it is applicable at present. But, to proceed with respect to incumbents actually possessed of livings, as if the legislature had a right, not merely to regulate their duties and services, but to interfere with their property, and assign a portion of it to other persons, on the pretence of public expediency, is to shake the foundations of all property, and to tread in the exact footsteps of the French revolutionists, who took from the church its patrimony, and without regard to the rights of the incumbents, applied it to other purposes, which were alledged to be more conducive to the general welfare. Yet such were the principles on which the stipendiary curate's bill proceeded. Its object was, to fix by law the sum to be paid by clergymen to their curates, and most absurdly it regulated the stipend of the curate, not by the

duty

duty he had to perform, but by the value of the living in which he Served The bill was objectionable in another point of view, on account of the additional power which it conferred on bishops over the inferior clergy. It was, therefore, most deservedly thrown out by the house of commons.

A motion of lord Henry Petty, towards the close of the session, on vaccine inoculation, was received with approbation by all sides of the house. The motion was in the following words; " that an humble address be presented to his majesty, to request that his majesty will be graciously pleased to direct his royal college of physicians to inquire into the state of vaccine inoculation in the united kingdom and to report their opinion and observations on that practice, the evidence which has been adduced in its support, and the causes which have hitherto retarded its general adoption; and that his majesty will be graciously pleased to direct, that the said report, when made. may be laid before this house." The object of this motion was, in the first place, to quiet the public apprehensions on the subject of vaccination, and to remove the uneasiness and alarm which rash, ignorant, and designing men had excited in the minds of many persons, by false or exaggerated statements of the failure of vaccination, and of the bad consequences following that practice; and, in the second place, it was in. tended, if the report of the college of physicians should be favourable to vaccination, to vote an additional reward to Dr. Jenner for his valuable discovery and disinterested conduct, in freely imparting it to the public.

VOL, XLVIII.

Towards the close of the former session of parliament, changes of a most serious nature, urged in terms of singular acrimony and virulence, had been brought against earl St. Vincent by Mr. Jeffery (member for Poole), at the instigation, as it was commonly believed, of the navy board; and voluminous papers, some of them moved for by Mr. Jeffery, and others by admiral Markham in defence of earl St. Vincent, had been ordered to be laid before the house. These papers were presented by Mr. Dickenson, on the second day of the present session, and ordered to be printed; but, a few days afterwards, a motion was made by Mr. Jeffery to discharge the order for printing them. The pretence for this motion was, that printing so large a collection of papers would occasion much unnecessary delay, and Mr. Jeffery scrupled not to say, that to gain time was the sole object of the friends of the noble lord, in all their motions, according to the system of procrastination, which, he asserted, they had studiously pursued from the beginning. It was unnecessary, he contended, to print the whole of the papers laid be fore the house, because many of them were irrelevant to the charges; and useless to incur so great an expence, for no one would take the trouble to read them. He proposed, therefore, if his present motion should be adopted, to follow it up by another for referring the papers before the house to a select committee, who should examine them, determine what ought to be printed, and reject the rest. But whatever might be the determination of the house upon this point, he pledged himself to persist in his accusation of the noble lord, to which he proH

tested

tested he had been led by no motive of private animosity, but by a sense of public duty alone.

Mr. Jeffery was answered by admiral Markham, Mr. Tierney, and several other persons. His charge of procrastination against the friends of lord St. Vincent, was pronounced to be an unfounded and scandalous calumny. Many severe and pointed remarks were made on his conduct throughout this affair; and he was asked, how he came to be acquainted with the contents of the papers before the house, which he could not possibly have read since they were presented. The indecency of thus attempting to mutilate and garble papers, which the friends of the noble earl thought necessary for his justification, and the absurdity of an accuser presuming to judge and decide for the person accused what papers were necessary for his defence, were so strongly put by the friends of the noble carl, and so generally felt by the house, that Mr. Jeffery, receiving no encouragement to persist in his motion, was glad, with permission of the house, to withdraw it.

All the papers moved for on both sides being at length printed, and laid before the house, Mr. Jeffery brought forward his charges on the 14th of May, by reading first a long written speech against lord St. Vincent, and then, twenty-four resolu. tions, being a summary and recapitulation of his speech, which he moved to refer to a committee of the whole house. Twenty-two of the resolutions contained the statements and allegations, from which the charges in the two last were deduced; and these were, that "dur. ing the time lord St. Vincent presided at the admiralty, the royal

navy was not maintained in a complete and efficient state ;" and that,

he was guilty of great negligence, misconduct, and dereliction of duty, in the office of first lord of the admiralty."

Our limits will not permit us to enter into the details either of the accusation or of the defence; nor have our readers any reason to regret that the particulars are not laid before them of a charge, so frivolous and vexatious as this was. It is sufficient to state, that lord St. Vincent was most ably and satis factorily vindicated by admirał Markham and lord Howick. The statements and comparisons of Mr. Jeffery were shewn either to be incorrect and unfair, or to relate to departments of the navy service under the immediate control of the navy board. The only error that could be imputed to lord St. Vincent was, that he misunderstood the nature of his control over the members of that board, and did not remove them, when he found them unfit for their situation. It was possible that lord St. Vincent might be mistaken in his opinion, that the king's dock-yards were capable, under proper regulations, of serving for all the purposes of the navy, without any recourse to the merchants' yards, either for building or repairing ships; but that opinion, though it might be erroneous, was not criminal, nor was it yet proved that it was erroneous. The enormous frauds practised on government in the merchant's yards, the collusive dealings between the dock. yard clerks and the timber merchants, and the frauds and abuses of every kind in the king's dock-yards, the detection and suppression of

encroach more and more every day on his other avocations, and interfere with the discharge of his other He had always expressed, and he continued to express, the most marked and unqualified reprobation of lord Wellesley's system of war and conquest in India; and he professed, on the part of the government to which he belonged, a determination to pursue, in regard to that country, a totally different system. But, in changing the late system of Indian politics, he was averse to any retrospective in. quiry with a view to punishment. It was unnecessary to prosecute such an inquiry, after the system complained of had been abandoned, and the persons who had carried it on, removed from office; and, in general, he observed, it was inexpedient to impeach men for errors of system, unless when, in support of it, they had been guilty of acts of great delinquency. Whether the delinquencies of lord Wellesley were such as to merit impeachment, was a question on which Mr. Fox declared, that he had not yet made up his mind, but, whenever the subject came before him, he should act as the case seemed to require. He added, that he would take no part in the previous stages of the inquiry. He had resolved, after the unsatisfactory result of Mr. Hastings' trial, to have no further concern in In dian impeachments; and in his present official situation, he thought it would be unbecoming in him to take an active part against a person under accusation. Ministers ought, in general, to abstain from interfering in inquiries of this nature, and leave the task to other members of the house; that no weight might be lent to accusations, except what they derive

from the individual who prefers them, and from the force of truth. The influence of this last consideration on Mr. Fox's mind appeared from his conduct in lord Melville's trial; for, though he had been active in bringing that noble personage to the bar of the house of lords, and though as one of the managers of the im peachment named by the commons, he attended, in that capacity, in Westminster Hall, on the first day of the trial, he took no part what. ever in the subsequent proceedings, though several legal and constitu tional questions were agitated during the trial, in which his opinion would have had great authority against the defendant.

Mr. Francis, whose name, through a long course of years, has been associated with whatever is right or meritorious in Indian politics, though he expressed a most decided opinion of lord Wellesley's delinquency, yet declined, from personal reasons, to have any concern in his impeachment, and declared, that it was his intention, in future, to withdraw himself generally from the discussion of political questions purely and properly Indian, and not involving any immediate British interest. But, notwithstanding this declaration, he was found at his post during the remaining part of the session, on all questions relating to India, and ever ready to support Mr. Paull in the prosecution of his inquiry.

Mr George Johnstone, a friend of Mr. Paull, who, before the return of lord Wellesley to England, had expressed himself most violently against that nobleman's conduct in India, took occasion, early in the present session, to inform the house, that he had dissuaded Mr. Paull H 3

from