Sir George Staunton, as a colleague of Mr. Ellis, bore testimony to his valuable services in various diplomatic offices, and hoped that Parliament's sense of justice would not permit it to deprive that gentleman of the present small and inadequate reward for the labours of more than twenty years.

Mr. Matthias Attwood: If Mr. Ellis had performed great public services, strike his name out of the Bill, and address his Majesty to place him on the Pension-list. If this proposition were not acceptable to the House, let Mr. Ellis be called upon to fill the office of Comptroller-General, for which he was so eminently fitted by his talents and great public services.

grounds, although not upon any other | by acting generously and fairly towards principle; but no such saving would re- him, without injury to the public, abstain sult from it, as there were four other indi- from wounding the feelings of a man of viduals in the Exchequer receiving nearly high honour and acknowledged ability? equal salaries. One was the First Clerk of the Auditor; then came the First Clerk to the Clerk of the Pells, a person of long experience, whose salary was very nearly equal to that of the Comptroller, and who would be entitled to a retiring allowance of almost the same amount; then there were two Tellers of the Exchequer, who stood upon nearly equal grounds; so that Government had su cient choice of persons to enable them to fill up the Assistant Comptrollership without detriment to the public, and without imposing a hard and humiliating condition upon Mr. Ellis. He had drawn a distinction between the Tellerships of the Exchequer, which were sinecure offices, and performed by deputy, and the Clerkship of the Pells, which did Mr. Henry Bulwer was sorry to find it not partake so much of a sinecure cha- necessary to appeal to the House, lest a racter, and was not performed by deputy; man of eminent public services should be and he had stated, that Government pro-degraded by being reduced to an office of posed to deal differently with the two subordinate rank. cases. To the Tellers it was proposed to Mr. Charles Grant wished to express grant retiring salaries unconditionally, for his opinion on the services of Mr. Ellis. the reasons he had stated when first men- He had been described as "new to the tioning the subject, but to the Clerk of public service." Never was there a genthe Pells (who held office under a tenure tleman to whom that expression could be different from that of the Tellers) a super-less justly applied. Perhaps there was annuation allowance was granted con- no public man who, after such long and ditionally, the condition being, that continued services, had gained so little. 'no such compensation shall be paid to Mr. Ellis, for the last three years, had any person holding an office in the pre-been one of the unpaid Commissioners of 'sent establishment of his Majesty's Ex- the Board of Control. His intimate ac'chequer (including the Clerk of the quaintance with the whole system of our Pells) who shall be appointed to an of- Indian policy (Mr. Ellis having been in 'fice of equal or greater emolument un- India more than once) had proved ex'der the Crown.' Under these circum-tremely valuable; and he (Mr. Charles stances, in the event of a fit office becoming vacant, it would be the duty of Ministers to offer such office to Mr. Ellis, with a view to save the superannuation allowance which he would enjoy as retired Clerk of the Pells. He had used no dissimulation with the House; and he now appealed to Members, as gentlemen and men of honour and liberality, whether Government would have been justified in dealing out so hard a measure as that proposed by the hon. member for Whitehaven to an individual after twenty-two years of valuable public services, and after nine years' possession of an important independent office? Would Gentlemen call upor Government to deal thus harshly with such an individual, when it could,

Grant) was bound, in common justice, to confess his obligations to his right hon. friend last year, on the question of the renewal of the East-India Company's charter.

Mr. Goulburn said, that there was not the slightest doubt or imputation on Mr. Ellis's merits and services; and he quite agreed with the right hon. Baronet (Sir James Graham), that it would not be justice to any gentleman who had filled such a situation as Mr. Ellis to place him in the subordinate situation of Assistant-Comptroller. What he (Mr. Goulburn) felt, was this,-that, knowing Mr. Ellis to be a man of business, who had been employed in important public transactions, and believing him to deserve the confidence of

recommendations, and now it was pro- | Comptroller-General, which office, it ap posed by the hon. member for White- peared, with a salary of 2,000l. a-year, haven to deprive him of his office, and was to be given to Lord Auckland. By place him in a subordinate situation. The that means a saving would be made for hon. Member, however, had made the the public, deducting any pension which amende honorable, by suggesting Mr. Lord Auckland might give up on being Ellis's appointment as Comptroller-Gene- appointed to this new office. It should ral. If any one would propose Mr. Ellis be distinctly understood, that, if Lord for that situation, he (Colonel Evans) Auckland should be appointed to the would vote for the appointment. situation of Comptroller-General, he would give up his pension.

as they might wish to effect in the disci- | occasion he saw the hon. member for Shefpline and government of the gaol. The field abandon his motion on what (to him House, he was sure, would see, not only at least) appeared a somewhat vague and the inconvenience, but the impropriety of unsatisfactory promise from the right hon. confining soldiers amongst felons in a Gentleman opposite, he thought it his county gaol. He hoped, therefore, that duty to give notice of a Motion on the subsome measures would be taken by Govern-ject, and for this reason-that whether the ment to remedy this evil. punishment of flogging was necessary for the preservation of military discipline or not, it was of great importance that the question should be fairly met and disposed of by a definite expression of the views of Parliament. The discussion of such a question year after year, in almost the self-same terms, and meeting it by a promise of gra

Mr. Ellice could assure the hon. Baronet, that he was fully aware of the great importance of this subject. It had been very lately under the consideration of Government, and within the last week measures had been suggested to him which he had no doubt, when they were matured, would put an end to the inconvenience com-dually diminishing a practice which, if plained of. He trusted that this statement would satisfy the hon. Baronet, that Government were sensible of the evils to which he had alluded, and that they had done, and were about to do, all in their power to stop them. The number of Courts-martial that had been lately held had very much increased the number of prisoners that had been sent to the gaols of the metropolis and of the county of Kent. It was quite true that soldiers, after their intercourse with the other prisoners in gaols, returned to their regiments in no improved state of mind, and the evil had arisen to such a height that Government had no choice left but that of considering measures for confining soldiers separately. He trusted that he should be shortly able to introduce a measure for that purpose.

Sir Edward Knatchbull declared himself perfectly satisfied with the statement of the right hon. Gentleman.

FLOGGING IN THE ARMY.] On the question, that the report of the Mutiny Bill be received,

indefensible, should be abolished at once, was not a course calculated to lend dignity to any deliberative assembly. He, therefore, indulged a hope, whatever resolution the House might adopt on the present occasion that one advantage at least would be gained, namely, that the country would be enabled to judge from the votes of its Representatives in Parliament whether the degrading practice in question was likely to be discontinued. Certain it was, that its discontinuance might now be most naturally demanded; for, without enumerating the long list of distinguished persons who had so often and so eloquently denounced this practice, he might observe of the present Government generally, that looking at the reiterated professions of its Members, and the avowed character of its policy, the country had a right to expect something more definite than the order lately issued from the Horse-Guards. In the humane and enlightened views of the right hon. Gentleman (the Secretary-at-War) he felt disposed to place full confidence; but if the practice complained of was, as he contended, a national disgrace, its longer continuance could hardly be justified on the ground that the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues were anxious to abolish it. Before proceeding to a more close consideration of the arguments urged in support of military flogging, he would just say a word on the order lately issued from the HorseGuards, in compliance with a pledge given to that effect by the right hon. Gentleman. The order was very short, and with permission of the House he would read it.

Major Fancourt rose to bring forward the Motion of which he had given notice on this subject. He said, that in submitting to the House some of the considerations which induced him to move a clause for the abolition of military flogging, he was anxious that the motives by which he had been induced to come forward should not be misunderstood. He could assure the House, that if any hon. Gentleman, whether connected with the Ministers or not, had evinced a disposition to take up the question with a view to its" His Majesty's Government having signifinal settlement, he should have been content to give a silent vote for the abolition of military flogging; but when on a late

fied to the General Commanding-in-Chief the King's command, that until further orders corporal punishments may be ap

plied to the following offences only, I have one very important error into which many the honour to express Lord Hill's desire, hon. Gentlemen had fallen. They enterthat you guide yourself accordingly, tak-tained an opinion, that it would be inexing care that, except in the instances pedient and dangerous to deprive courtsherein specified, the said punishment shall martial of a power, by the possession of on no account be inflicted:-1st. For mu- which alone they could hope to deter the tiny, insubordination, and violence, or ill-disposed from the commission of exusing or offering violence to superior offi-treme offences. Now, in point of fact, cers. 2nd. Drunkenness on duty. 3rd. these were the very offences which were Sale of, or making away with, arms, am- not visited by the lash. Flogging, as at munition, accoutrements, or necessaries, present inflicted, might be termed a pustealing from comrades, or other disgrace-nishment for such offences as were tried ful conduct. It will doubtless occur to you by district or regimental courts-martial, that the object of these instructions is not to which were the tribunals for lesser render the infliction of corporal punishment offences. District courts-martial were for the future more frequent or more certain limited to the infliction of 300 lashes, than it is at present, even in the cases in and regimental, to 200 lashes. General which it is now to be restricted; but, on the courts-martial, on the contrary, before contrary, that the intention is to restrain which the graver offences were tried, it as much as may be possible to do so might inflict any number of lashes; but, with safety to the discipline of the army." as they were no longer permitted to bring Now, it really appeared to him, that this a culprit up a second time for the purpose order left the matter much in the same of receiving that portion of the punishment state as that in which it originally stood. which, from exhaustion, he might be unIt was true, that they got rid of flogging able to undergo, general courts-martial, for desertion; but a more comprehensive for the most part, passed sentence of phrase than insubordination and other transportation or imprisonment, as being disgraceful conduct," could hardly have a punishment more commensurate to the been selected. The offences enumerated crime than the infliction of the number of in the Mutiny Act under this latter head, lashes which, ordinarily speaking, the prihe would read to the House. [The hon. soner was able to bear. Thus the pracGentleman here read some extracts from tice in question was brought into operation the Mutiny Act, which showed that this precisely in those cases where it was least. phrase embraced many offences.] It ap-called for, while the most flagrant violapeared to him, that an officer disposed to tions of military duty were differently. undue severity would find nothing in this treated. But, in refutation of the fear, order to restrain him. Some Gentlemen might be disposed to ask, if it was probable, that officers would act in a manner at variance with the spirit of the order? That was a question which he did not feel called on to answer. He was to judge of the spirit of the order by the manifest import of its wording; and this was, he would contend, of a nature to admit of almost any abuse of authority on the part of a superior officer. Far be it from him to accuse officers generally of a disposition to abuse their authority; but his object was to place the soldier beyond the reach of any such abuse, and towards the attainment of that object, the order lately issued from the Horse-Guards, was, in his opinion, of no assistance whatever. But let them examine the actual working of the present system, and what advantage resulted from the possession of that power which it was sought to abolish. In the first place, he was anxious to point out

that the lash was necessary to keep the soldier to his duty, he would observe on a very important fact which had singularly enough been passed over in all previous discussions of this question; it was, that in the Horse-Guards the punishment of flogging could hardly be said to exist, for a man, if flogged, was usually expelled the regiment. Were they not to infer from this, that the punishment of flogging was in those regiments regarded in so disgraceful a light, that a man once flogged, was for ever degraded in the eyes of his fellow-soldiers? He might, perhaps, be told, that a superior class of men enlisted in the Life Guards. That great inquiries were made as to the characters of men who wished to enlist, he was aware; but he questioned much whether men able to stand the test of such inquiry, would join the regiment but from the very fact, that they could not be subjected to the lash for any offences, save