whole for the use of Chelsea Hospital; and a pretty application they had made of the land, in appropriating one quarter of an acre to the hospital, and giving the whole of the remainder to an officer not at all connected with it. As our military establishment could not be expected to be diminished, the means of extending the hospital should be kept undiminished: The hon. baronet, who had brought forward this subject, therefore had done well for the public interest. from col. Gordon, not to admit any person. He then went on to the hospital, in order to get a written order for admission, from some of his friends there. He was not fortunate enough to meet with any of them, but left a note for one, requesting of him to send an order. The answer he received was, that it was not in his power; but, that upon application to sir David Dundas, he might get an order. It was now said, that in the opinion of the physician and surgeon of the hospital,the former situation was not a proper one; but this was the first time the house had heard of that fact. The right hon. gent. (Mr. Long) had said, that on the day of the debate upon the subject in that house, a complaint had been made to the Chelsea board against the projected situation of the remember that a notice had been given of the motion, [It was on that day, observed Mr. Long, that the complaint was made.] and a notice given in that house the day before the discussion took place, might easily travel to Chelsea, and give rise to the complaint. [It was on the day of the notice, again said Mr. Long, with some earnestness, across the table, that the com Mr. Ponsonby justified his hon. friend (Sir Oswald Moseley) in having stated the report, which he had heard, that the order of exclusion had been given by the Commander in Chief, which he had done only to give the right hon. gentlemen opposite an opportunity of contradicting the rumour if they could. He had risen, how-building; but the right hon. gent. must ever, to ask whether the grant of colonel Gordon had been perfected, so as that by law it could not be avoided; because if so, colonel Gordon having the right to the land, might still erect his house in the very situation, which, it was allowed on all hands, would be inconvenient for the hospital. [It was here stated across the table, that the agreement and grant were conditional that no house should be erect-plaint was made, as will appear from the ed in a situation inconvenient to the hospital.] Well, then, the attempt to erect a building in such a situation was a violation of the condition, and no inquiry had taken place respecting it, until the subject had been brought under the consideration of the house by the hon. baronet, not then in his place. The secretary to the treasury, too, had stated on a former night, that the whole of the ground was such, that a house could not be built upon any part of it, except the spot which had been chosen for the intended house; and yet it now appeared that another situation fit for building upon could be found upon the land. Mr. Huskisson had only stated, that a great part of the ground could not be built upon; he had not, nor could he have said, that it was such that the proposed building might not be removed a little to the right or to the left of the situation first marked out. Mr. Calcraft felt himself bound in justice to his hon. friend to state that he went on Tuesday to inspect the ground, and had been refused admittance, and, as he was informed, by order of col. Gordon. He rang the bell, when a boy came out and informed him, that he had positive orders minutes of the board.] There certainly could be no ground for the warmth shewn by the right hon. gent.; his own object having been calmly to state his view of the case. Mr. C. Wynn did not doubt the statement made by the right hon. gent.; but he was surprised, if that had been the case, that the circumstance had never been mentioned until this day. If he remembered what passed on the former occasion, not a word of this had been stated, and he even was persuaded that it had been said that the physician and surgeon of the hospital approved of the scite of the house. Mr. Long contended that he had stated the circumstance, and added that it was the scite of the Infirmary that was said to have been approved of by the physician and surgeon of the hospital. Mr. Barham thought, that as many members had been prevented from inspecting this ground, it would be desirable that the house should, on some future day, be made acquainted with the person who had given the order for exclusion: it required explanation, why, when a suspicion had been excited respecting the grant of this land, members had been refused the power of inspecting it; and he trusted that the right hon. gent. (Mr. Long) would enquire into the matter, and communicate it to the house on some future day. The Papers were then ordered, and Mr. Huskisson presented them from the bar. [GENERAL CLAVERING.] Sir T. Turton, in rising to make the motion of which he had given notice, was aware of the difficulty in which he was placed by the late proceeding in that house respecting gen. Clavering. If he were not convinced of the importance of the question not only to the justice of that house, but to the liberty of the subject, he should be the last man to appeal to the magnanimity of parliament, or claim its indulgence for a proposition for altering a former decision. In doing this, however, he was solely actuated by a regard to justice, and for the character of that house, as he was wholly unacquainted with the connections of the officer to whose case he was to refer. The hon. baronet then proceeded to state, that if he had been present at the discussion, he should have employed his humble efforts, though he durst not flatter himself he should have been successful, to dissuade the house from the decision it had come to. He then contended that prevarication could not apply to the evidence given by that officer, and was proceeding to an examination of the evidence in the printed minutes, in order to establish that point, when Mr. Whitbread called the hon. baronet to order, as he understood his object to be to induce the house to reverse a solemn decision it had come to in this session, which was contrary to the usage of parlia ment. The Speaker decided, that if the motion of the hon. baronet was to call upon the house to rejudge what it had already adjudged this session, it was inconsistent with the practice of the house to entertain it. It would be for the hon. baronet to state whether such was his object. Sir T. Turton, after several ineffectual attempts to establish the regularity of the course he proposed, and upon being distinctly informed from the chair that it was highly irregular, was at length induced to wave his motion altogether. [SALE OF OFFICES PREVENTION BILL.] On the motion for the second reading of this Bill, Lord Folkestone said, the present bill professed to check abuses in the Sale of Offices in every department of the counVOL. XIV. try. He felt it difficult to follow the bill in its different parts, referring, as it did, to the act of Edward the sixth on the same subject. He was satisfied that the object. of the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been to make the bill as comprehensive as possible, for which he gave him full credit. He was, however, of opinion, that little good would attend the bill, as indeed, little good in general attended Bills of Prevention. The house knew well what bills had been passed to prevent bribery and corruption in the elections of members of parliament, yet that the evils sought to be provided against still existed, because the only effect of these acts was to render the persons concerned more circumspect, and the practices more difficult of detection. If the Inquiry, for which he had moved the other night, had been allowed, it would have been in the power of the house to see whether the bill proposed would be likely to do any good. That Inquiry, however, had been refused, and he was therefore bound to say, that however an act like the present might increase the difficulty of continuing the practices sought to be checked, the evils themselves would still exist. He did not quarrel with the right hon. gent., however, on this account. He had no doubt the right hon. gent. had done what he thought best; but he would ask, why any exceptions had been made? Why had offices in the Courts of Law been exempted, they being the most objectionable of any? Was it fitting that offices connected with the administration of justice should be made the subject of sale? It surely was not so, and the present was a fit opportunity of eradicating the practice. There was, however, another exception in the present bill more important than that to which he had just alluded; more important, on this account, because the attention of the house and of the country had been more particularly called to it in consequence of the Report of the East India Patronage Committee, that Seats in Parliament were trafficked for. When he considered that this practice had been of such long standing, he thought it impossible that the house should not take some notice of it. He threw it out, therefore, for consideration, if it would not be proper that a provision to prevent this disgraceful practice in future should not be introduced? Or if it would not be the better plan to institute an inquiry in the first instance, and then to pass such a provision? He was satisfied the right hon. gent, would not object to I the introduction of such a provision. The Treasury was said to have a great trade in this traffic. The Secretaries of the Treasury were understood to be the great persons concerned in carrying it on. If the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or his friends, chose to deny the charge, he should be glad to propose the appointment of a Committee to inquire into it. He was not, nor ever had been, connected with any traffic of the kind. He could not therefore say that it consisted with his own knowledge that the charge was true; but this he could say, that he understood and believed that it was. (Hear, hear! from the Ministerial bench, particularly from Mr. Rose). He was happy to hear himself cheered by the right hon. gent. What he stated was matter of public notoriety; and it was even understood that previous to every election an Office was opened in the Treasury, for the purchase of seats in parliament, which again were sold to others, of more or less interest and ability, who again in proportion to their possession of those qualities, paid a higher or lower price for their seats. There had even lately been a vacancy in that house, because the person holding the seat had not been willing to comply with the stipulation on which he received it. His lordship believed the right hon. gent. would not deny what he had stated. If he did, his lordship was anxious for a Committee to inquire into the fact. He should not propose the appointment of one at present, but only threw out the observation, that the attention of the right hon. gent, should be directed to it. According to what should fall from him, he should regulate his conduct. He could not, however, forbear from expressing his surprize, when the right hon. gent. assisted by the Attorney and Solicitor General, saw occasion to bring forward a Bill of this kind, that they should have kept out of view that offence which was more important than any other species of trafficing whatever. Mr. Bankes said, the East India Patronage Committee had not expressed any opinion, that sales of offices in the service of that Company should be exempted from the operation of the present Bill, but only that there was no necessity for any separate and specific legislative measure applicable to that Company. They had done so the more particularly on this account, because the East India Company were already armed with greater powers than those which the country possessed; the former being permanent, while the latter was subject to change, and dismissal from office always following the commission of the offence in the one, while it was by no means so necessary a consequence in the other. He did not know whether the noble lord objected to this bill or opposed it. For his own part, he did not see how any man could expect from a legislative measure, that it should operate to the extinction of crime. If it rendered it more difficult, he conceived it did all that could be expected from it. He was desirous to entertain the Bill, and if any thing could be added to it in the committee, so much the better. The great object was to make the hazard and risk greater than the temptation. He believed it would be a long time before any abuses were again heard of in the patronage of the East India Company; and if the instance of the dismissal from the Stamp Office was acted up to, the evil would be greatly done away. Mr. Creevey said, that the noble lord was perfectly correct in stating, that Seats in Parliament had been notoriously bought and sold by the Treasury. He would say, that this was not only his belief, but that it was within his knowledge. The Treasury not only openly bought and sold those seats, but they kept, in a great degree, the monopoly of that market. If this was attempted to be denied by ministers, he should be glad to have the oppor tunity of proving it, and he could easily prove it from the lips of any one who had ever been Secretary of the Treasury. It was absolute nonsense and delusion on the public, for the house to spend their time in considering abuses in the Commission. ers of the Lottery, and every other minor department, when they knew, and when the public knew, that the greatest of all abuses was constantly practised by every Secretary of the Treasury, in buying and selling Seats in Parliament. To talk of a dissolution of parliament as an "appeal to the people" was mere mockery and imposition. It was perfectly well known that a dissolution of parliament was not an appeal to the people, but to the Treasury (Hear! hear!). Although he had great respect for the last government, and owed some personal favours to them, yet he must say, that their dissolution of parlia ment, at the end of four years, like the dissolution by the present ministers, at the end of about four months, was not an appeal to the people but to the Treasury floud cries of Hear! hear!). Until the house was disposed to suppress this odious | to prevent the trafficing for Seats in that The Chancellor of the Exchequer said he could not help congratulating himself a little on the declaration of the noble lord (Folkestone), that he was satisfied that any obscurity which was to be found in the bill proceeded from a wish on his part to make the act comprehensive. If there was any obscurity, he hoped it would be removed, and this might in some measure be effected by introducing and incorporating into the present Bill the Enactments of the act of Edward the 6th, rather than by referring to that act. The objection that the Bill only went to increase the difficulty in committing the crime sought to be prevented, he suspected, would apply to every bill. He had even attempted to do away the temptation to commit the crime, by annexing forfeiture of office to the detection of it. As to the omission of offices in our courts of law, he suspected the noble lord had not calculated the disadvantages which would arise to counterbalance any good arising from their being comprehended under the present bill. Never was the administration of justice more pure in this or any other country than at the present moment. However much we might be surprised, therefore, that the sale of offices in our courts of law should ever have formed any part of the emoluments of our judges, yet having done so for ages, and it following as a necessary consequence, if the sale of these offices were now to be abolished, that some remuneration must be granted instead of them, the question was, if the inconveniences arising from a fresh call on country on this account, and other disadvantages with which the alteration would be attended, would not greatly outweigh the advantages to be expected from it? There were also a certain description of patent offices granted for life, with the privilege of disposing of other offices connected therewith. These he had also omitted out of the bill, as for them too, if the sale was to be prevented, an equivalent must also be given. He did not believe the advantages to be derived from introducing these into the bill would at all equal the disadvantages attending it. There was only one other point in the noble lord's speech to which he felt it necessary for him to advert, namely, that no provision had been introduced into the bill the Mr. Creevey, in explanation, said, that what he had stated was not as a charge | even reduced to the necessity of carrying against any particular administration, but a mere matter of fact. The knowledge which he spoke of by no means proceeded from any confidence which had been reposed in him by his friends. Mr. Whitbread said, he was so well pleased with part of what had fallen from a right hon. gent. (Mr. Perceval,) that he should say the less on that part to which he objected. He was happy to observe, that the right hon. gent. agreed with the noble lord, that the practice of trafficing for money in seats in that house was a scandalous abuse; one which should not be allowed; and that the right hon. gent. would meet the inquiry and expose the practice wherever it should be seen to exist. He hoped, however, as the right hon. gent. called on others to expose the practices of other administrations, that he would not be backward in stating all that he knew of his own administration. It was impossible that the right hon. gent. could be ignorant of the abuses which existed. Every person knew that abuses did exist, and there were few who did not know, more or less, of the nature and quality of them. The public knew well, many members of the house knew well, that there were in that house persons who represented nothing but their own money; that there were some, who were not even then free agents, but that there was occasionally such a thing as conscience in the transaction, which sometimes forced them to abandon both their seat and their money too. Why, then, he asked, should the right hon. gent. use these tauntings, when the practice was well known, even to himself, to exist? The right hon. gent. talked of Hampshire. It was the right hon. gent.'s fortune on that occasion, which it had been during only a very small period of his life, to be in a minority. He seemed on that occasion to be impressed with a belief, which he (Mr. W.) had felt a great deal more frequently, that minorities were not always in the wrong. But to reconcile himself to this one misfortune, he could only recommend to the right hon. gent. to look to all the rest of his political life, and from thence he would be convinced that majorities were not always in the right. There, too, (in the case of Hampshire) he would find that the Secretary of the Treasury was a freeholder of the county. But that in general Secretaries of the Treasury for the time being were not only in the habit, but on such a traffic as that described, and that a public market was opened for it. If smaller evils required being corrected, why should not this flagrant and shameful abuse be guarded against? Why not strike at the roots of the evil, and cut up a traffic of magnitude? If the rt. hon. gent. really entertained any doubt on the subject of the purchase and sale of Seats in parlia ment, let him turn to his near neighbour (lord Castlereagh) and learn what they had done in Ireland, where one million and a half of money had been taken out of the pockets of the people, to pay for the purchase of boroughs.-It was impossible, he conceived, for the right hon. gent., to consider these circumstances without feel-, ing that, in one way or other, an end must be put to this system, or it would put an end to them. An hon. gent. (Mr. Bankes) talked of the benefits likely to result from the removal which had taken place from the Stamp Office of an inferior person there, detected in improper practices. He hoped that persons of every description would be obliged to relinquish them, and that superior officers, if detected, would not be spared. He agreed that the administration of justice in this country was as pure as it could be, and that the practice of the sale of offices in courts of law had no effect on the administration of justice; but still he did not think it proper, that even the very idea of the sale of any thing connected with justice should be allowed to exist. Whatever expence might thence arise he was of opinion might be made up by throwing the fees of these different offices together. At all events he thought the practice of selling such offices should be abolished, that no ground of objection on this head might remain even to the most captious caviller. He could not help differing from his hon. friend (Mr. Creevey) as to a general election being at all times an appeal to the Treasury. He believed the Treasury did possess a most preponderating influence; but at the same time he knew that the people had a voice which would be used. The infringement therefore on the elective right of the people was not so great if they were not first driven mad and then appealed to; if they were not first driven into a state of phrenzy and then desired to make use of their senses. Parliaments were not so difficult to be won that dissolutions were at all times necessary. The last parliament but one had furnished majorities to three |