Sir J. Simeon observed, that every body must know the lord chancellor had a very unpleasant duty to perform on these occasions. It was, however, his official duty in which he could not suffer his private feelings to interfere. If these persons were to present a petition to the court, stating that they had purged their contempts as well as they could, there could be no doubt that the learned lord would do every thing in his power to relieve them. Mr. Bennet said, it was a mere mockery to talk of presenting petitions to the court. Some of them had no means of doing this, and to others no attention whatever had been paid. Their cases were well known, and they ought to be restored to liberty [Hear, hear !]. was still detained there for the costs of thated his whole life for a contempt of court, contempt. Such was the distressed situa- no man could hear without shuddering at tion of this person, so frightful and ex- the very thought of it. This was a subtreme his poverty, that he must remain in ject of the utmost importance: it required confinement during the term of his natural that some steps should be instantly adoptlife, unless the House should interfere to ed, and he trusted that such regulations procure his release, as there was no likeli- would be made as might effectually prehood whatever of his being able to pay the vent its recurrence. costs. Good God! was it possible, in a country which boasted of its justice, its freedom, its humanity, that any man should be incarcerated for years, merely because he was unable to discharge the fees of a court of equity! Alas! the case had too frequently occurred, and many had fallen victims to this barbarous mode of administering the laws. Last year, when he called the attention of the House to this subject, there was a wretched individual in the fleet, who had been confined there under an order of the court of chancery, for no less a time than thirty-one years. The name of that man was Thomas Williams. He had visited him in his wretched House of bondage, where he found him sinking under all the miseries that can afflict humanity; and on the following day he died. There were at this moment within the walls of the same prison, besides the petitioner, a woman who had been in confinement twentyeight years, and two others who had been there seventeen years. The petitioner, he repeated, was detained for costs, and for costs only! he had committed no crime, he had not been guilty of any moral offence. This was a disgrace to England, a disgrace to the laws, and a disgrace to those by whom they were administered. The lord chancellor on a former occasion had said, “ Why did not I know of these cases before?" He had known of them since, and he (Mr. B.) did not find from the keeper of the prison, that the learned lord had interfered to restore these wretched persons to liberty, to their families, and to the world. It was high time, then, that something should be immediately done, or "the law's delay" would drive them to madness, or consign them to the grave. Whether his majesty's government intended to make any regulations on this subject he could not tell; but the lord chancellor was bound to consider it and if that learned lord neglected it any longer it would be a great breach of his legal duty [Hear, hear!]. Sir F. Burdett could not restrain his feelings on hearing such melancholy cases stated. That a man should be imprison Mr. Lamb thought it a great hardship that persons, after purging the contempt, should be detained in confinement for costs. He saw no reason why the provisions of the insolvent debtor's act should not be extended to these cases, as well as to all those of common law. Ordered to lie on the table. MR. CANNING'S EMBASSY TO LISBON.] Mr. Lambton, in rising to submit a motion to the House on the subject of the Mission to Lisbon, said, that if ever there was a subject which deserved the consideration of the House, it was that which he had now to bring before them. It was one which had occupied the attention, and drawn down the reprobation of the public from the very first moment of its occurrence; but that feeling had been strengthened by the disclosures which had lately been made of the communications which had taken place on the subject of the Portuguese embassy, previously to the appointment of the right hon. gentleman. He could not here avoid remarking on the ineffectual attempt to withhold the communications with Mr. Sydenham, and thus to give a most unfair ex-parte impression, by keeping out of sight the information most essential to a correct judgment of the case. What he should now do was, to submit the burthens of the people already groaning under the weight of an insupportable taxation. The statement of the case was this in July, 1814, a negociation was entered into by the ministers, for the purpose of obtaining the co-operation of the right hon. gentleman opposite (Mr. Canning), and his friends in both Houses. On the 29th of June, that negociation was brought to a successful issue, Mr. Canning being appointed ambassador to Lisbon, Mr. Huskisson surveyor-general of Woods and Forests, and Mr. Wellesley Pole master of the Mint. On the 30th of July, the member for Liverpool moved for a new writ in the room of his friend Mr. Huskisson, on the appointment of that gentleman. The motives assigned for the appointment of an ambassador to Lisbon had been two dispatches from lord Strangford, the minister at the court of Brazil, to viscount Castlereagh respecting the intention of the prince regent of Portugal to return to Europe. The first of these dispatches had been received on the 24th of April, 1814, the second on the 26th of August. As these were the only authorities on which the measure rested he should read them. The first was in these words: to the House a simple statement of facts, and by them dispassionately to draw conclusions from them. He did not consider this motion as an attack upon an individual, for the conduct of that individual had little to do with the question, but it was a charge against his majesty's ministers of delinquency, by which, in his opinion, they had subjected themselves to an impeachment (if that was not an obsolete proceeding)-a charge of a criminal misapplication of the public money for the most corrupt private purposes. The motives of the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Canning) in this transaction he should not attempt to discover; those of the ministry were sufficiently apparent, and he should be unworthy of the character of an independent representative of the people, if he hesitated to call for the judgment of the House on the conduct to which those motives had given rise. It was now for It was now for the House to show that their professions of economy were not empty sounds; and they would not, he trusted, forego the approbation of their constituents-their best reward-for the sake of sheltering the culpable and interested delinquency of ministers, and of propping up a system of measures already denounced by the people as ruinous and oppressive. "I should fail in my duty, did I not earnestly recommend to the consideration of his royal highness's government, the speedy return to Europe of the Portuguese royal family. The prince's own feelings, and those of every member of his family, are earnestly in favour of this measure. Some degree of apprehension may, perhaps, operate upon the mind of the prince himself, to prevent him from coming forward as eagerly as the other individuals of the royal family would wish; but this sentiment would be easily removed; and his royal highness has explicitly stated to me, that as soon as ever Great Britain declares that his return to Portugal is necessary, he will accede to any intimation to that effect." This was not the first time when this transaction had been made the subject of discussion, and within and without those walls it had been regarded as a measure resorted to, purely for the purpose of supplying the weakness of ministers by calling to their assistance the talents of the right hon. gentleman-talents too useful indeed to languish in obscurity: it had every where been asserted, that there were no public grounds for sending an ambassador to Lisbon after the conclusion of the peninsular war, that it was a disgraceful waste of the public money and solely to be attributed to the lowest species of political barter, and intrigue. That this was true, he had never doubted; but had he ever entertained any doubts, they would now have been completely removed by the papers which had been laid before the House. Those papers proved, that the mission to Lisbon was under-words: taken with no prospect of advantage to the interests of this country in its political or commercial relations-but with a view solely to the political, and he might almost say, commercial advantages of the ministers themselves, and that for these sinister objects, they consented to add to (VOL. XXXVI. ) This, it would be observed, contained merely a declaration of the line of policy which lord Strangford had thought fit to adopt. The next dispatch was received on the 26th of August, and was in these "The glorious events which have given peace and independence to Europe, have revived in the mind of the prince of Brazil those eager desires to revisit his native country, which had been for a time suppressed. His royal highness has lately done me the honour to state his anxious (M) hope that Great Britan will facilitate the completion of his wishes upon this subject, and that he may return to Portugal under the same protection as that under which he left it. And his royal highness has, during the last week, intimated to me four or five times, as well publicly as privately, that in case Great Britain should send a squadron of ships of war to this place, for the purpose of escorting his royal highness to Europe, it would be particularly and personally gratifying to his royal highness that should be selected for this service." The blank, he believed, had been filled up by the name of sir Sidney Smith. Now, on one or other of the dispatches which he had read, the appointment of the Lisbon ambassador must have been founded, if it had any foundation but the desire to find an appointment for the right hon. gentleman. It was ascertained, that in the interval between the 24th of April and the 26th of August, no communication had been made from the Portuguese ambassador to our government: an address had been voted for all the communications from the Portuguese ambassador respecting the return of the prince regent of Portugal, and the answer was, that no written communication had been made. Indeed, he could prove at the bar, that not only had the Portuguese minister made no communication of the probability of the return of the prince of Brazil, but he had asserted, that the government had quite misunderstood the intention of his master. The appointment could not have been in consequence of the dispatch received in April, for it was on the 6th of June that Mr. Sydenham was appointed, and on the 18th of July, when the noble lord opposite had written to Mr. Sydenham, telling him that he could not anticipate any public grounds why he (Mr. S.) should not confine himself within his ordinary allowances, he of course could have had no contemplation of any such appointment. It was still more impossible that the appointment could have been occasioned by the dispatch received on the 26th of August, for that was a month after the appointment of the right hon. gentleman had been announced to the public in the newspapers. He supposed it would not be contended that the appointment did not take place until it was formally announced in the Gazette-the evidentia rei, the previous notoriety of the transaction, was a sufficient contradiction of any such idea, and he did not think any of the ministers would stand forward in their places and assert, that the appointment did not take place in July. But if the right hon. gentleman had really been appointed for the purpose of welcoming the prince regent on his return, by what pretence could the appointment be justified in August, when the fleet intended to convey the prince of Brazil to Europe did not sail till the 29th of October? It was morally impossible, therefore, that his royal highness could have reached Europe till the month of May following. He should now call the attention of the House to the expenses of the mission:On the 18th of July, 1814, lord Castlereagh had written a letter to Mr. Sydenham, then the minister at Lisbon, in whichhe stated, that it was the Prince Regent's pleasure, that the expenses of the mission should be reduced to the lowest scale, and stating, that he could not contemplate any reasons for continuing the scale of expenditure which had been adopted during the peninsular war. He had been rather surprised to find this economical disposition in any production of the noble lord's, but his surprise was of short duration, for only ten days after Mr. Sydenham had been reduced to a salary of 5,2001. a year, the right hon. gentleman was appointed ambassador extraordinary with a salary of nearly treble that amount. On the 31st of October, in the absence of the noble lord (Castlereagh) at the congress, lord Bathurst wrote to Mr. Canning, then in England, to inform him that he was to be allowed 14,200l. a-year on the same grounds on which Mr. Sydenham had been limited to 5,2001. Why such a change had taken place in the allowance to the minister, while no change had taken place in the circumstances of the embassy, and when no chance existed of the immediate return of the prince of Brazil to Europe, yet remained to be explained. The expense of sir Charles Stuart had been referred to, but that could form no precedent for the expenditure of the right hon. gentleman. The whole of sir Charles Stuart's expenses were occasioned by the peninsular war. He actually held the reins of the Portuguese government. He was a member he believed the sole efficient member of the regency, and was forced to incur the whole of his large expenditure, to discharge the high official duties of his situation.-But the case was very different when amassed a sufficient sum, or when a place was provided for him, or when the job became too glaring and called forth the public censure, he left the important business of the Lisbon mission under the sole guidance of a chargé d'affaires; and during the whole of this mission, the only duty performed by him was a speech to the factory [Hear! and a laugh]. The defenders of this mission had talked of the efforts which the right hon. gentleman had made to complete the abolition of the slave trade; and one of his friends, on a former occasion, had said, "that if there was the least chance that the abolition of the slave trade would be accelerated by this measure, the opposers of the appointment of the right hon. gentleman should pause before they called on the country to pronounce it a gross and scandalous job." He could prove, however, that since the appointment of the right hon. gentleman, the trade of Portugal in human flesh had increased instead of decreasing; and that not one single favourable declaration was procured from the Portuguese government by the efforts of the ambassador. the war had ceased, and when the ambassador was no longer a member of the Portuguese government. On the 30th of May 1815, the right hon. gentleman had found out a reason for this increased scale of allowance. In a letter to the noble lord (Castlereagh) of that date, he stated, that the rank of ambassador, which could make no practical difference in expenses, of which the salary (whether as ambassador or as envoy) supplied only a part, was politically important, as counterbalancing the positive loss of rank and influence, which would otherwise have been occasioned by the British minister's being no longer a member of the regency." The right hon. gentleman had by that time forgotten the letter of lord Castlereagh, in which Mr. Sydenham was directed to reduce his expenses to the lowest scale. He seemed to have taken a former suggestion of his noble friendto have "two strings to his bow"- for when he was forced to acknowledge that the object of his mission had ceased, as there was no probability of the prince of Brazil's return to Europe, he contrived to discover, that it was essential to the political welfare of England, that his salary should be continued; he discovered, in short, that as sir Charles Stuart had a large allowance, because he was a member of the regency, so he (the right hon. gentleman) ought to have a large allowance, because he was not a member of the regency [Hear, hear! and a laugh!]. The rest of this letter of the right hon. gentleman's was unimportant, except as it displayed talents for finance, which, although in this instance elicited for his own advantage, it was to be hoped he would henceforward contribute to the public service, and in support of his friend the chancellor of the exchequer in this season of financial difficulty. From all these documents it was evident, that the plain and almost avowed purpose of the mission was, to procure a place for the right hon. gentleman. He was therefore sent, with a salary of 14,000l. a-ycar to a capital where there was no court, and to which, even while it had a court, no ambassador had been sent for almost a century. He superseded a deserving servant of the public acting there, as envoy with a salary of 5,000l. a-year. He said, superseded designedly, for Mr. Sydenham's intention of resigning was not known to ministers when they made Mr. Canning's appointment, and when he had Under all these considerations, he called on the House to come to a decision on the merits of the case. He had now to put to the test the sincerity of the professions of the House, of economy and vigilance over the extravagant conduct of ministers. He showed them a case in which the public money had been most culpably and disgracefully squandered;-no sort of necessity had been shown in the papers which the government had submitted as their justification; on the contrary, every document tended to prove most clearly that in no one instance had they more abused the confidence reposed in them by parliament than in the present. If, in these times of distress and discontent, it was important for the House to acquire a reputation for strict public virtue, and incorruptibility, they would mark their sense of this proceeding, and show the people that they still retained within themselves the means of satisfying their just claims, and of protecting them against the culpable and profligate extravagance of ministers. He should move the following Resolutions: 1. "That it appears to this House, that on the 18th of July 1814, lord viscount Castlereagh addressed an official dispatch to Thomas Sydenham, esq., then his majesty's minister at Lisbon, acquainting him that it was the command of his royal highness the Prince Regent, that during his residence at the court of Portugal, he should confine his personal expenses within his ordinary allowances as envoy extraordinary and minister-plenipotentiary, viz. 5,2001. per annum that he had directed Mr. Casamajor to lose no time in removing the mission from the house of the marquis de Pombal, and that he could not anticipate any public grounds for continuing the expenditure of his majesty's servants at Lisbon on the scale on which it had been conducted during the war in the peninsula. 2. "That it appears that under the pretence of congratulating the prince of Brazil, on his return to his native dominions, the right hon. George Canning was appointed ambassador extraordinary to the court of Lisbon, with the increased emoluments and allowances belonging to that character, viz. 8,200l. as salary, 6,000l. as extraordinaries, 1,500l. as outfit, and 3,180l. as plate money, amounting in the whole to the sum of eighteen thousand eight hundred and eighty pounds. 3. "That such an appointment, on such a scale of expense, appears to this House inconsistent with the recorded declaration in lord Castlereagh's dispatch to Mr. Sydenham, of the 18th of July 1814; was uncalled for by any change in the circumstances of the mission subsequent to Mr. Sydenham's appointment; and has been attended with an unnecessary and unjustifiable waste of the public money." The first Resolution having been put, Lord Castlereagh said, that as the hon. gentleman had stated the question to the House, he had founded on an historical narrative a charge against ministers of extravagant expenditure, not called for by the expediency of the public service, but highly detrimental to the positive interests of the country. He was happy to meet the charge on these broad and distinct grounds; and if he was not satisfied that the expense in question was perfectly justified by the circumstances that occasioned it, he would not attempt a vindication of the transaction. Considering the situation he held in the government of the country, he hoped he should not incur any charge of presumption if he felt willing to take the whole responsibility of the transaction on himself. At setting out, then, he should disclaim any disingenuousness that might have been imputed to him in the withholding from the House papers and facts more peculiarly within his own knowledge: the case, indeed, was very much otherwise; and so far from having withheld any paper relating to Mr. Sydenham, he had felt much relieved by their production. The fact was, that the hon. gentleman had first called for information connected with the embassy to Lisbon, and had never demanded any retrospective documents; afterwards he called for information on the dispatch forwarded to Mr. Sydenham, which was immediately afforded; and then the question was, whether there was any ground for expecting the return to Europe of the prince of the Brazils: but the view taken by the hon. gentleman so far from leading to any just conclusion, had embarrassed rather than facilitated the discussion. Before he came to the principal question, it was necessary to separate from it an imputation, that a measure had been engaged in, calculated to produce unnecessary expense to the country. The hon. member had supported this imputation by drawing a comparison between the expenses of the embassy, and those incurred by Mr. Sydenham-a comparison that was in no wise fair. In the first place, the sum mentioned as the ambassador's allowance, included extraordinaries: and so far from the salary amounting to 14,000l. a year, it did not exceed 8,2001. if these extraordinaries were deducted; and 8,2001. was no more than was usually granted in all foreign missions. If the hon. gentleman wished to know what was the utmost expense of the mission, he would find that the ambassador's allowance, with the extraordinaries, increased as they were by all the circumstances which at that time tended to raise them, did not exceed in amount what the committee in 1815, on the civil list, had recommended, and the House had adopted, as expedient at Lisbon, not for an embassy, but for a mission of the second order. The statement, therefore, made by the hon. gentleman was not fair; but before he went into the question, whether a change had been necessary in the establishment at Lisbon, he thought it necessary to correct the statement, that the last mission had been arranged on a scale of unusual expense. With respect to the charge itself, it was quite clear that, in his letter of the 18th of July 1814, he had laid Mr. Sydenham under injunctions to confine his expenses as much as possible; but he did not say that cases might not occur in which it would |