would contain the substance of the charge, and the judgement of the court; but a case must be strongly made out to warrant the production of the minutes, which would be trying the prisoner over again. The man who was punished was a very bad character. He got drunk, and was disorderly; the captain put him in irons, and went on shore. Soon after, the man became riotous; the ship was a small one, and it was obvious that, when a man thus conducted himself, it was necessary to enforce order by rigorous measures, for it was impossible, as on shore, to put a man of this description away. The hieutenant accordingly ordered that he should be gagged, which was done; but he still persisted in cursing and abusing the service, and blaspheming his God and his king. The first gag was taken out, and a larger one put in; in which the lieutenant certainly acted very improperly. Lieutenant Richards then went ashore, leaving the man with his hands tied behind him. There was another person near him in confinement, but no sentry over them; the man was extremely intoxicated, and in the course of the afternoon he died. The boat's crew could not row on shore, because of the wind; the body became offensive, and was thrown overboard. Under these circumstances, Lieutenant Richards was tried for his life; and it was the opinion of the court, that the man did not die fromthe gagging; but that the lieutenant's conduct was so far bad, that he was incapable of serving his majesty; and he was accordingly dismissed the service. The house, therefore, he trusted, would not be inclined to try him again, particularly as, in so doing, they would be arraigning the proceedings of the court."

Sir R. Bickerton said, "he had been 37 years in the navy, and 22 of them in actual service, and he had never, on any one occasion, seen gagging resorted to." Lord Cochrane said, "gag

That

ging might be rendered a cruel practice; but when there was a notorious drunken scoundrel aboard, who not only drank his own grog, but sold his clothes to buy the grog of other men, it would be very hard, if the whole ship's company, doing their duty watch and watch, should be kept awake by such a brawler, because the officer had no power to prevent him from disturbing them. The discipline of some particular ships," he said, "might be severe; but, generally speaking, more humanity could not be exhibited than was shewn in the navy. The naval service, however, would be much better, if the prisons were not so frequently emptied into men of war." "As to the anonymous case," Mr Yorke said, "he was sorry that Mr Brougham had thought proper to introduce them; it would not tend to any good whatever, and, by being left over to the next session, it could only produce mischief and inconvenience. honourable and learned gentleman must have known, that if he did not chuse to bring the cases forward, it was his duty to have stated the causes of complaint to the Board of Admiralty, who would immediately have instituted the necessary inquiry; and if the facts had been found true, the offi cers would have been put on their trial, and brought to condign punishment. But the course which Mr Brougham had chosen to pursue was such, that he must complain of him for throwing such cases before the public, without affording an opportunity of ascertaining their truth or falsehood." Mr Croker added, "that if Mr Brougham would only state the name of the ship from which the man jumped overboard, a minute inquiry should be made. For a long series of years, no accusation, not even an anonymous one, had been passed over by the Admiralty without investigation." And in reply to what Lord Cochrane had so justly observed,

concerning the practice of sending convicts on board men of war, he declared, that for several years the Admiralty had opposed it with the utmost determination.

Mr Brougham declared, in reply, "that he had not heard a single argument against the production of the minutes of evidence. The officer, he admitted, could not be affected by them, for it would be impossible to try him again; but there were two parties whom their production might affect, the court martial, and the Admiralty, by whom the trial by court martial was ordered." Being here reminded, that the trial had been ordered by the admiral on the station, not by the Admiralty, he asserted, that the case ought to have been tried, not by a court martial, but by the Admiralty's jurisdiction. Here he was again corrected, and informed by Mr Perceval, that the act of parliament expressly declared, "that any one accused of having committed a murder in the fleet, should be tried by a court martial." Then passing to his anonymous charges, Mr Brougham said, "that, as to mentioning the names of those from whom he received his information, he should be very cautious. He did not mean to say, that the Board of Admiralty would distinctly visit their resentment on such individuals; they would not, for instance, put them at the bottom of the list; they would not set a black mark against them in the Admiralty books; but they would set a black mark against them in their own minds; they would be biassed to their future prejudice; and this he said without any reference to any particular set of men, for he should have the same apprehension were his own political friends in office." Mr Perceval observed upon this, "that the honourable and learned gentleman must enter tain a strange notion of the effects of office, if he conceived that persons in

office would set a black mark in their minds against the name of a man who gave information of a foul murder ; and that they would be indisposed for that reason to do any thing kind or fair by such an individual. So strongly was the honourable and learned gentleman impressed with the notion, that he thought even his own friends, were they in power, would be influenced by considerations of this nature. The observation would be unfortunate for the honourable and learned gentle man, if at any future time he should himself get into office, inasmuch as it might be supposed to proceed from a conviction of what would be his own feelings under similar circumstances." Mr Perceval then expressed his regret that Mr Brougham should have stated so many anonymous instances of misconduct, which was, in fact, bringing the charge against the whole service. "It will be generally circulated," said he, "that, were it not for the apprehension of a black mark in the minds of the Admiralty, many persons would come forward to support these complaints; all this will do infinite mischief. Let the honourable and learned gentleman place himself in the situation of the officers on the western station, and then say how he should feel under that general imputation, which the publication of charges not specifically made against any particular individual by name must necessari ly bring upon the whole body.”

In consequence of the manner in which the secretary of the Admiralty called upon him to state the name of the ship from which the man had jumped overboard, Mr Brougham specified it to Mr Croker; but he did not do this till the day before the session closed, when, of course, it was not possible that enquiry could be made in time to refute the misrepresentation as publicly as it had been made. The Admiralty, however, with

its characteristic activity, immediately investigated the business; a lieutenant, who had at the time belonged to the ship in question, was found, and his deposition related the circumstances as they had really occurred. The sufferer was ordered to be flogged, not to try whether he would fulfil his intention of jumping overboard, (for no such intention had been expressed on his part, and still less had any such diabolical purpose of provoking him to effect it ever entered the heart of the captain,) but because he had been asleep below during his watch; an offence of which he had repeatedly been guilty. It was true that he jumped overboard; the lieutenant, who made this deposition, was at the time standing by the captain, where he heard, and could not but hear, every word which the captain spoke; it was false that the captain had used the words imputed to him, or any words of the like import; it was false that no efforts were made to save the man; the ship was put back, and the boat lowered; and it was equally false, and equally calumnious, that the crew to a man expressed their discontent against the captain for his habitual severity, for he was both beloved and

respected by them.-The captain, against whom this accusation of nothing less than wanton murder had been thus groundlessly thrown out, is one of the most able men, and distinguished officers in the British service. But such is the system of these popular reformers, like the stone lions of the State Inquisition at Venice, they are ready to receive all accusations, however unsupported, and open-mouthed to repeat them, careless whom or what they injure, so they can but gain popularity. Mr Brougham, too, in his vocation, had long been accustomed to make hardy assertions in a well-known journal, where the correctness of any assert on has usually been a secondary consideration.

It is worthy of notice, that, at the close of the preceding year, an order had been issued from the Admiralty, directing that every ship and vessel of war should send in quarterly returns, stating what punishments had been inflicted and for what crimes, and specifying the date of both crimes and punishments. In reality, reforms of this kind, and practicable reforms of every kind, are as much the inclination as they are the interest of government.

THE supplies voted for the year a mounted to 56,021,8691, of which the proportion for Ireland was 6,569,000l.; 49,452,8691. were therefore to be provided by England. 12,000,000l. of Ex. chequer bills were funded, which, with a loan of 7,500,0001., creaMay 20. ted a charge of 1,215,8191. It was not, however, necessary to impose any new taxes; for though the customs fell short by about 200,0001. of their amount in the preceding year, the increase in the excise balanced this deficiency; the post-office revenue and the stamp duties had greatly increased, and, on the whole, the consolidated fund afforded a surplus of five millions. The duty on hats was taken off, because it had been impossible to enforce it, as had been the case formerly with a similar tax on gloves. Mr Perceval said, "that if any person should imagine it might be expedient to impose taxes, in lieu of them, on coats, waistcoats, shoes, or leather breeches, and, in consequence, should be disposed to suggest such modes of supply to government, it might be a great relief, both to those persons who were so kindly ready to furnish the Chancellor of the Exche. quer with the ways and means of the year, and to that individual himself, if he stated, that he did not consider it expedient to tax articles of dress. This notice," he added, "would not appear superfluous to the committee, if they

were aware how many letters he was constantly receiving, in which not only every habiliment which could be named, but even the bolts, handles, latches, and other appendages of doors and windows, were recommended, by well-intentioned persons, as fit objects for taxation." The committee of supply had voted an additional penny per pound upon cotton wool from America, which was esti- May 23. mated at 147,000l. This was objected to by Sir Robert Peel and Mr Baring, who argued that it was impolitic to impose a tax upon the raw material. Mr Baring added, that in other times such an impost would not have been hazarded, for the manu factures of Germany would in that case have driven ours out of the market; and he reminded the house, that the cotton manufactory was a very growing one in America; which country already exported a large quantity of cotton twist. Sheeps wool, he said, was a much fitter article of taxation, however the country gentlemen might be prejudiced against taxing it; but our cotton manufactures might be undersold or excluded, and our woollen could not be rivalled. Mr Whitbread also opposed the intended impost, and rep obated the mode in which, for five-and-twenty years, Mr Rose had introduced such taxes from time to time, under the specious name of regulations. To these arguments Mr Perceval replied, that

progression, that the number of sick had doubled, and that of the deaths tripled, within a very short time." Sir J. Newport supported this statement, adding, that, as a man in Ireland could now get completely drunk for fourpence, no workman would work more than two days in the week. This was of course destructive of all good order; and the consequence must be, that a military force would be necessary to controul the excesses of a populace maddened by habitual intoxication with ardent spirits.-Mr Foster replied, that he should be ashamed to hold his office one hour, for the purpose of raising a revenue at the expence of the morals of the Irish people. The reduction had certainly been intended as a means of putting down illicit distillation, and the experiment had not failed; for it appeared, by the returns of the revenue officers for the quarter ending at Christmas last, that the seizures amounted to 572 stills, 378 kegs, 344 worms, 5362 utensils, 2800 gallons of spirits, and 150,000 gallons of pot-ale: He denied also that spirits were so much.cheaper, as had been represented; in 1804, they were 7s. 7d. a gallon, and they were now 8s. 6d. However, he said, he should not object to the committee. Lord Castlereagh confirmed the statement, that drunkenness had greatly increased in Ireland, and that the reduction of the duty on spirits was generally believed to be the cause,—a cause indeed sufficiently manifest.

The committee was accordingly appointed, and thus the first step taken towards remedying an acknowledged evil. An attempt of Mr Perceval's, to admit sugar into our distilleries upon equal terms with grain, was not so successful. This was a subject upon which he had to contend with the short-sighted selfishness of the landed interest, and with the prejudices of a few wiser men. Mr Curwen opposed

it, as a measure of the most pernicious tendency, and deprecated the idea of preferring the colonial to the agricul tural interest.—Mr Coke, of Norfolk, asked, what did the colonies furnish to the country in comparison? The question, he said, was, whether en couragement should, or should not, be given to the growth of grain: if the agriculturist did not get a fair remunerating price, barley would not be cultivated, cattle would not be fed, and the London market would feel the effects.—Even Mr Davies Giddy, whose judgement is so seldom erroneous, declared himself averse to the measure, as one, which, by discoura ging the cultivation of grain, tended to put us in the power of our continental enemy: The most efficacious mode of avoiding this, he said, was to permit the free distillation of spirits from grain, unfettered by any compe tition whatever. And Sir John Sinclair opposed it, because, he argued, the growers of barley alone ought not, out of all the community, to bear the burden of relieving the West India proprietors. If relief was to be given, it should be from the common-stock. Mr Fuller, in replying to arguments of this strain, said, "that he voted on the subject as independently as any man; for if they would not allow him to distil his sugar, his barley in Sussex would sell the better. Bullion had gone abroad for corn, till we had not a guinea remaining, and this measure would help to keep our money at home. The property of the land owners had risen from 30 to 40 per cent., while that of the poor West India proprietors had fallen 50 per cent. ; yet the West India interest supplied the country with ships and seamen." Mr Marryatt said, that if the agriculturists persisted in claiming the monopoly, they were bound to show that they were capable of completing the sup port. So far, however, were they